


On The Nature Of Angel Grace and The Metaphysics of Supernatural

by mittensmorgul (MittenWraith)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archived From Mittensmorgul Blog, Archived From Tumblr, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 59
Words: 212,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenWraith/pseuds/mittensmorgul
Summary: This is... a lot. Not like my other meta dumps haven't been, but this is important to my understanding of the show and how the Supernatural Universe works in general. Archived here, rather at random, are my tags On The Nature Of Angel Grace, Vessels and Meatsuits, Angels and Souls, Heaven Hell Purgatory and the Empty, Supernatural Weapons, The Practicalities of Monster Hunting, and various other tags as I run across them. :)





	1. Chapter 1

[May 8, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/118496168485/oranges8hands-mittensmorgul-ive-been)

52 notes

[oranges8hands](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/118493918453/mittensmorgul-ive-been-reading-some-posts):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/118487455660/ive-been-reading-some-posts-about-why-cas-didnt):
>
>> I’ve been reading some posts about why Cas didn’t immediately fly in to save Charlie, and I’ve been really thinking about it.
>> 
>> First of all, he can’t fly. I’m not entirely certain ANY angel can fly or teleport in the way they were able to before the angel fall event. At least, the only angel I’ve seen do it since then has been Metatron (but please correct me if I am wrong).
>> 
>> And while, yes, Cas didn’t fall in the same way, so he shouldn’t have been affected the same way, his wings are clearly damaged even when he gets his own grace back. Whatever Metatron did to make the angels fall may be an ongoing situation, rather than a single one-time event. Or perhaps the “tiny bit” of grace left after Metatron did the spell wasn’t enough to fully restore Cas to his former glory. I’ll leave that speculation for another time. What’s important here is Cas still needs his car to get around. No more flapping in and out.
>> 
>> Second, what little grace he had seems to be failing him. Not like his stolen grace failed him and eventually poisoned him, but like his grace was failing him in S5. When he was “cut off from Heaven” and couldn’t heal Bobby. His grace slowly gave out on him all through the season (implying in 5.04 and 5.21 that eventually he would become little more than human if the trend continued).
>> 
>> I think that may be part of why he was unable to heal Amelia in 10.20. There have been repercussions for disobeying orders and breaking Metatron out of Heaven Jail. I think Cas has been cut off again, and whatever power angels are able to draw from Heaven while they’re on Earth, he’s not able to tap into it anymore. I’m not even sure he realizes it yet, because he seemed genuinely surprised that he was not able to heal Amelia, but if Dean or Sam asks him to try and heal Charlie and he fails, he might be forced to admit that his powers are slipping away from him again.
>> 
>> At least, that’s one plausible theory, I think.
> 
> Except they didn’t even call him. (Actually speaking of is he even in next week’s episode? Is this gonna be another Meg situation where he never gets told directly and we have to headcanon him learning about it?) As far as I know it wasn’t clear how far away Charlie was from the Bunker or Rowena’s prison, but considering Charlie was just stepping out for some “peace and quiet” it would make more sense than Cas was closer. Cas, who besides healing could have provided help (what should have been unnecessary - vampires, witches, everything she faced in Oz, other members of this crappy family, but no the guy who just ripped his own arm off and only didn’t bleed to death because of magic took her out.) Forget flying, he could have  _drove_. 
> 
> And wait, he couldn’t heal Amelia because it was the special Grigori sword. Or at least that was the excuse because Cas was able to heal Charlie the week before. Also if “Metatron poisoned Cas’s grace” is the actual reason  ~~and the poison is slow-acting and only matters when it comes to healing female characters~~ wouldn’t it make more sense for them to show Cas not being able to heal so that creates an actual pattern of Cas having issues, because so far that’s just a theory with proof ranging from barely subtextual to nonexistent. 

Yeah, it does piss me off that they didn’t even call Cas back to let them know where Charlie was when they found her. I mean they still had to drive to that motel, and someone could’ve given Cas the heads up while they were en route. But if Dean was driving, would Sam have made that call? I don’t even understand why Cas felt obligated to stay behind and “guard Rowena” after Charlie left. Sam had been leaving Rowena for stretches of time before he brought Charlie in. I was under the impression Cas was there to referee, to keep Charlie safe from Rowena, mostly. Sam never did lay out the rules for Cas.

Once Charlie left, it pissed me off that Cas thought the greater duty was to stay behind and guard Rowena. But then again, Charlie had always proven to be able to take care of herself before. Why would she suddenly be the damsel in distress? She’s always been the one to save the damsels, right? But then again, they knew the Stynes were closing in on them now. They knew Charlie was in immediate danger. Why Sam wouldn’t have immediately told Cas to abandon his post to go search for Charlie, especially when they knew her location, is another of the perplexing and poorly written choice.

I don’t necessarily think Metatron poisoned Cas’s grace, but I don’t think he got a full dose back. Nor do I think he’s been able to recharge it since he’s been cut off from heaven. Maybe the Grigori sword wounds were different and I’m totally guessing about all of this.

Also, we haven’t seen what happens next, so I’ll wait to make assumptions until after we see if Cas is even given a chance to attempt to heal Charlie. And according to IMDB, he is in the next episode. \

[spn 10.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.21) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [yes i agree that so much about this episode was jarringly out of character](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yes-i-agree-that-so-much-about-this-episode-was-jarringly-out-of-character) [and the hoops the characters were forced to jump through in order to achieve the ending we got were implausible at best](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-the-hoops-the-characters-were-forced-to-jump-through-in-order-to-achieve-the-ending-we-got-were-implausible-at-best) [and horrifyingly gross really](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-horrifyingly-gross-really) [but they left us with a shocker scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-they-left-us-with-a-shocker-scene) [any resolution we're going to get will come in the next episode](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/any-resolution-we%27re-going-to-get-will-come-in-the-next-episode) [and frankly they just shouldn't have left it there like that for shock value](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-frankly-they-just-shouldn%27t-have-left-it-there-like-that-for-shock-value) [because that was horrifyingly gross too](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-that-was-horrifyingly-gross-too)

[spn 10.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.21) [spn s5](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s5) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [metatron outright told him that most of his grace was gone but a small bit remained](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/metatron-outright-told-him-that-most-of-his-grace-was-gone-but-a-small-bit-remained) [so he only got that small bit back which might make him weaker than he would've been in the past](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-he-only-got-that-small-bit-back-which-might-make-him-weaker-than-he-would%27ve-been-in-the-past) [but even under hannah's new leadership heaven still has rules](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-even-under-hannah%27s-new-leadership-heaven-still-has-rules) [and disobedient angels are probably still punished](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-disobedient-angels-are-probably-still-punished) [being cut off from heaven seems to be a standard baseline punishment](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/being-cut-off-from-heaven-seems-to-be-a-standard-baseline-punishment) [and breaking metatron out of prison is probably a punishable offense](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-breaking-metatron-out-of-prison-is-probably-a-punishable-offense) [gosh i just remembered that cas still has metatron's grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gosh-i-just-remembered-that-cas-still-has-metatron%27s-grace) [and i'm wondering what he plans to do with it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27m-wondering-what-he-plans-to-do-with-it) [HOLY CRAP NOW I'M WORRIED ABOUT THAT TOO](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/HOLY-CRAP-NOW-I%27M-WORRIED-ABOUT-THAT-TOO) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)

 

 

[May 11, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/118696761490/littlehollyleaf-elizabethrobertajones-replied)

71 notes

[littlehollyleaf](http://littlehollyleaf.tumblr.com/post/118692910757/elizabethrobertajones-replied-to-your-post):

> _[elizabethrobertajones](https://mx.tumblr.com/wf/click?upn=4x5e1f7ZqpFTSTSYTsoMBLbgYX4XndAYEIkOOtYaRyhrgNsSTzExe6w26HR2rguL3lLRvQszyyiezFFVb3Ds0LB-2BEYhMZjLIzSI6iXyRD6R77GE54n9BrafKkmD6749fsqMdUzNFk1Se9Ur7jyZEX1ypNWXuYO1jnwaOtHz-2FcnIR0mcDagldA3FN7EAydYG8_n205hVE0zxk3rqYwhCq4s4lVvW9-2FkkLgl2AJeht2sY6jMDYjQsLBYn1eO-2FGDVRkQztzVkpgcIRe3DoajAWzgCz9zesx1pF2LtTw-2BKe-2BR4qWAddfKj36WMZgX4KejE-2FBEcthoOU3VmtM5owv9qi0yWM4WO65QHFZBxjqtaIwbUorAGh1YC9ShPLdQ-2BMrUl4Nhpb7knErjw9fWvbDDSouexNV8w-2FPNurCO9t3JFl-2F7LV7yHVrl0sjSQKJfZfgJJp4F) replied to your [post](https://mx.tumblr.com/wf/click?upn=ivL2WV6mZACpiLQ9apfmrE1P11kbgfaK5k88i5yadeBI1AWEJlUNeQyrq6dXyd6l9MI-2BHBj8eO3cbIkbmrfC2jtT7Eqvmr8FBifwFn4jq4K9oBlzbRONIk5qyDehVCmlL7aldc1y9edWpJWxYi4RoazNLE8-2FuV4Npjrdbvrail6YPwJC6k6dSStqxbAhI-2FxV1f2FIulgWKGOaHhrFnJW4QVqnkOUKrKDPyUZiPeRHU-2BuEP5SY0bCez99dEnDSAeY_n205hVE0zxk3rqYwhCq4s4lVvW9-2FkkLgl2AJeht2sY6jMDYjQsLBYn1eO-2FGDVRkQztzVkpgcIRe3DoajAWzgC3o7gQpXCRIUue3tqhRS4cFgMeNO88BwTfm9IxEYL2p0uevpJNEI-2BuWr5u6-2FMQfM15VYx5qdD2YUMRgkJkh1q67KIWb-2BRXrt-2BxcOQF-2FvOMJGO8awAyRGs8VMdWWeVLnrgM-2FOYNIwqFbWXPpNRf7mBePwtdbmoFcaXTHAuPMcgEYm): The grigori angels presumably were too which is why they resorted to that. I ended up talking loads about season 5 Cas after that episode in my musings on the new lore so maybe it was meant to plant a seed. Hm. _
> 
> Oh point! I hadn’t thought about the grigori being cut off from Heaven and thus their grace being ‘powered down’ as it were, like Cas in S05 (and maybe Cas now, and maybe the angels in S09). Yes, that makes sense, and the feeding off human souls was to ‘recharge’ their grace.
> 
> Q - if an angel is cut off from Heaven long enough, will their grace ultimately fade COMPLETELY, like a used up battery? 
> 
> I’ve been figuring that there’s, like, a base level of power that angel grace is able to maintain indefinitely (which maybe is enough power to heal minor wounds, read a few thoughts/emotions, see demon/monster true forms, or whatever), but to be able to do the BIG stuff (like resurrect, heal large wounds, have wings and such) angel grace has to be continually replenished/recharged. So it’s sorta like how we always need to give our body energy via food/drink for it to be able to work well, be at its strongest - except with the human body no recharging will ultimately lead to death, but if grace isn’t recharged it won’t, it’ll just remain weak.

I’d definitely like a canon answer, but I remember Cas in The End was able to “read” something about past Dean and know instantly it wasn’t “his Dean.” But was otherwise powerless, including being laid up with a broken foot for months. He was also able to feel the effects of alcohol and drugs, unlike when it took a whole liquor store to affect him in 99 Problems.

Also, in 5.21 he was able to overcome Pestilence by “a speck.” He had to take a bus to get there, and he was obviously affected by the diseases that left Sam and Dean on the floor, but maybe he was just that much more determined to finish the job?

So, without leeching off human souls like the grigori did, or stealing grace from another angel, it’s possible Cas is slowly powering down. It would be nice to have a canon explanation for it, though. I just figured after he violated Heaven’s orders and set their most notorious prisoner free, there would be consequences. Like, cut off from the power source consequences akin to those back in S5 when Raphael and Zachariah were in charge.

[spn meta-ish](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish) [but more like wild speculation at this point](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-more-like-wild-speculation-at-this-point) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [yes i even have a tag i've been speculating on this so much](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yes-i-even-have-a-tag-i%27ve-been-speculating-on-this-so-much) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)

 

 

[May 21, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144685272700/i-never-liked-the-grace-cure-idea-mostly-because)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: I never liked the grace-cure idea, mostly because I hate sacrifice on that magnitude being made in the name of love, or "proof" of love. Can you imagine the guilt Dean would have felt over Cas sacrificing his grace to save him from something he did to himself? Not to mention it would have been something Cas "had" to do, not a choice made without external pressure. Just my personal opinion, of course. If Cas becomes human, it should be his choice for himself, and only for himself.**

I, personally, was hoping it wouldn’t be something Cas HAD to do, but something he offered of his own free will, after deciding that he really did want to be human. He’d been asked for several seasons what he was, what he wanted to be. And until he was told that Dean was dead in 9.23 and resignedly stated, “I just want to be an angel,” (bearing in mind that he had NOTHING at this point, or thought he did, anyway. No Dean, no cause, no ties to heaven other than his stolen grace. He just wanted his own grace back, to be an angel again, since he thought he had nothing else. S9 left him miserable and alone. S10 started out with him working with Sam to try and find Dean. Cas had abandoned heaven and was living essentially as a human again while his grace dwindled. He thought he was dying. But then Dean was found, his grace was recharged (not of his own free will, mind), and he had a mission again– help round up the angels and try to help Sam and Dean find a cure for the mark. But then Metatron said there was still some of his original grace left, and it might save him. He had something to live for again.

So those two missions, find his grace to save his own life and find a cure for the Mark, became the mission for s10.

But once Cas found his grace again, it was like he finally regained his own agency that he’d lost in 8.23. What to do now that he was free to make his OWN choices? Many of us thought that CAS would be the one to find a cure for the Mark that involved angel grace to “burn it out” of Dean. That Cas would volunteer to tear out his own grace and fall, not because he was FORCED to, but because everything else had been pointing to him wanting to remain on Earth, to finally choose to be free of his duty to Heaven since his ideas about humanity were  _so obviously different_  from other angels.

He really is in love… with humanity. And not just Dean. And that’s been borne out over and over again.

So yes, while it would be a sacrifice, and while it would be made out of love, it would also be made out of free will. It would have been a moment for him to “pick a side.” Because every time he’s been told to pick a side, he’s picked Dean.

Without any other obligation or duty, really, where do you think he’d choose to go?

Much of the time I’d rather be here.

You have to choose, Castiel – us or them.

You gave us order, Castiel, and we gave you our trust. Don’t lose it over one man. 

Cas, you just gave up an entire army for one guy. 

Gosh I could go on pulling quotes all day. But I won’t. Just everything with his storyline in s10 with Hannah, how wrong he felt about rounding up “rogue” angels to drag them back to heaven when they were just enjoying finally being able to experience life on earth in human ways… it sat wrong with him. He tried to explain his reasoning to Hannah, and when she began to feel the emotions of her vessel, Hannah decided those  _were not for angels_. But those are the very things Cas found so rewarding about humanity.

I mean he spent HALF THE SEASON doing this. Basically riding around with an angel chatting about humanity. Like he was coming to terms with what he really wanted, you know?

Which is why it really looked like it could be a possibility for a real cure for the Mark at the time. And it wouldn’t have been a “proof of love” or a forced or coerced sacrifice, or him “doing what he had to do.” It would’ve been what he  _wanted_  to do. And that’s entirely different.

They obviously began laying out a very different story mid-season and that’s where all this wonderful growth sort of collapsed and everything became awful again (barring one happy moment in 10.18 foreshadowing some upcoming doom and gloom), it felt like an entirely different story being built up around the Stynes (and yes I will harp on that forever as a truly awful bit of storytelling). They were built up over a few episodes as these all-powerful big-bads only to commit the most horrendous crime ever unleashed on SPN viewers and then be disposed of in a five minute fight. REally? REALLY?! It felt forced and shoehorned into the season to stretch out the MoC arc so that it could lead into the Darkness plot.

And like I said, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed s11 start to (almost) finish. I am eager to see the finale, really excited for s12, and in no way disappointed with anything we’ve had this season (though I would like Cas back now please).

[spn s10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [gosh i haven't had to use that tag in a while](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gosh-i-haven%27t-had-to-use-that-tag-in-a-while) [mark of cain](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mark-of-cain) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

 

[Sep 25, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165729342760/elizabethrobertajones-gneisscastiel)

34 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/165722746938/gneisscastiel-gneisscastiel):

> [gneisscastiel](http://gneisscastiel.tumblr.com/post/165722493840/gneisscastiel-elizabethrobertajones-replied):
>
>> [gneisscastiel](http://gneisscastiel.tumblr.com/post/165722370605/elizabethrobertajones-replied-to-your-post-so):
>>
>>>  
>>> 
>>> [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q) replied to your post
>>> 
>>> [“So in season 9 and 10 Cas gets really sick because his “body?”  is…”](http://gneisscastiel.tumblr.com/post/165721628580/so-in-season-9-and-10-cas-gets-really-sick-because)
>>>
>>>> I always read it as sort of more divine punishment for doing an abhorrent thing, although I guess it probably does work like an immune system for all the exploration we’ll ever get of it :P
>>> 
>>> See this is a pretty good metaphysical explanation. I was kinda looking for a more scientific one. When a body rejects an organ the symptoms are:
>>> 
>>>   * The organ’s function may start to decrease
>>>   * General discomfort, uneasiness, or ill feeling
>>>   * Pain or swelling in the area of the organ (rare)
>>>   * Fever (rare)
>>>   * Flu-like symptoms, including chills, body aches, nausea, cough, and shortness of breath
>>> 

>>> 
>>> Obviously Castiel’s grace isn’t going to swell but a lot of these sound like things that he was experiencing. Even if the explanation of why he was rejecting it is because it was abhorrent it’s still interesting that he had physical symptoms like this. I have also wondered how Cas knew that stealing grace would even work. Has something like this happened before? 
>> 
>> [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q) Could also an angel’s morels themselves be a sort of immune system? In season 7 when Sam and Dean are putting together the weapon to kill Dick (lol i will never be over that) part of the spell calls for the blood of a fallen angel. So fallen angel blood must be physically different from regular angel blood.  
> 
> Yeah, stuff like this is why I figure it’s all in some sort of ineffable magic :P I mean if angel was a “blood type” Anna and Cas still had it without their grace and there presumably are magic differences between their bodies and regular human ones, but I’d guess only for the sake of magic, like how “virgin” is a magical state of being for humans (but can be faked with magic too).

Yeah, some stuff just has to go down as ~handwavey because magic~. Just like in 5.17 when Cas said only a “True Servant of Heaven” could kill the Whore of Babylon… and then excluded everyone in the room, yet Dean WAS able to kill her. That was a huge red flag that he’d essentially given up and was ready to give Michael the Big Yes. It was based, seemingly, entirely on Dean’s thoughts and choices and mental resolutions, and not on some inherently scientifically quantifiable factor.

Considering how angel grace has always been likened to a sort of “battery” entirely separate from an angel’s consciousness or identity, the way Anna’s grace had been contained in a vial and the only change in her after taking it back on was that she was suddenly powered up again and not a “different person.” (At least not until she got dragged back to heaven for Boot Camp reprogramming.) And that’s the metaphor used throughout s9 and s10 for Cas and his fading grace, either the “battery” comparison, or the blatant “fill up” Crowley administered  _at a gas station_ when his “tank was running low.”

Why didn’t that grace “recharge?” Why wasn’t it permanent the way his original grace seemed to be? Seeing it as some sort of organ rejection is a convenient metaphor that seems to work, but the reasons behind WHY it doesn’t seem to work still come back to ~handwavey because magic~ reasons, such as the “abomination” factor of taking something that was not his own from another angel…

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [see i even had a tag for that :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/see-i-even-had-a-tag-for-that-%3AP)[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)

 

[Nov 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167624981350/do-you-have-any-thoughts-about-why-cas-didnt-have)

75 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you have any thoughts about why Cas didn’t have the power to heal the security guard?**

He hasn’t been “fully powered” for a very long time. He can’t resurrect the dead anymore (I believe the last person he resurrected from “all the way dead” was Bobby in 5.22, but he also had a “special dispensation” having just been resurrected himself by Chuck at that point, and Bobby had only been dead for a few minutes.)

Since he had his original grace stolen in 8.23, and Metatron “used up” most of it in the angel fall spell, he’s been “weaker.” When he had the stolen grace during s9 and s10, he was barely able to even heal himself (Hannah had to heal him at one point in 10.02 (hello, Dabb).

Metatron told Cas and Hannah in 10.02:  “But there is some of your mojo left. Not a lot… But enough.“ Enough to keep him alive, enough to keep him from burning out with stolen grace, but not a lot. We’ve seen, since he got his own grace back in 10.18, that he’s definitely weaker power-wise than he was before.

I mean, he was weak enough, and bound into his human body enough, to give consent to be possessed by Lucifer. Pretty much every angel he’s encountered since late s10 has commented on the fact that he is weak, that he’s not actually an angel anymore. Even Amara commented on it, after eating Ambriel’s grace:

**Amara** : She’s right you know, you are expendable and weak. And why God took a special interest in you, I’ll never understand. My brother always did have horrible taste in men.  
 **Castiel** : Just do it.  
 **Amara** : Blue eyes, you’re not even worth the effort… and no offence, but you look a bit used up. Plus, I have a job for you.

He wasn’t even worth eating, so she used him as a post-it note in 11.10, written by… SURPRISE! Andrew Dabb.

And already in 11.10 we had him failing to heal Dean of “smiting sickness,” yet still “diagnosing” him with all sorts of prodding. *holds up finger and offers to take his temperature*

He is weak, “a bit used up.” He was able to heal Sam after the BMoL torture, but Sam wasn’t all the way dead and in need of resurrection. One episode earlier, in 12.01, he basically did the “forehead tap triage” on Mary after the car crash, specifically to DIAGNOSE her. He told Dean that she was unconscious but that there was “no serious damage,” but he didn’t heal her despite the fact that they were in an unknown and potentially antagonistic situation. He was working on it, though, when they were attacked, and Mary did come around on her own a minute later.

Recall how weak he was during 12.10 from healing Ishim, and how long it took him to heal himself from his own wounds… I believe there was a major debate about Cas’s weakened state after that episode, too. People were calling bullshit back then, and just like now I rolled my eyes, because  _he has been weakened since 8.23. Nothing has changed._

I suppose people just wanted to assume that Chuck would’ve “healed” his grace, but Cas never asked him to… or that the Empty would’ve resurrected him with some sort of boost in power level, but all it did was make sure he wasn’t naked when he bounced down to that bramble patch. 

Cas literally showed up with a new outfit– i.e. the surface-layer of him is new– but everything else? Same old same old.

Even when he healed Dean in 12.19 and 12.23, they made A Big Deal out of showing us that his grace glowed golden over Dean’s face, and NOT Cas’s own blueish glow, because he was still “tapped in” to JACK’s power at that point.

If the guard in 13.06 has just bumped his head and knocked himself out, I think Cas would’ve been able to heal him, but he was already dead. That was confirmed by Sam a moment later. I do think he was performing the same sort of “forehead tap triage” that he did on Mary in 12.01, diagnosing the problem rather than attempting a healing. Because he can’t heal the dead, and he hasn’t been able to for a very long time.

This is not a new or shocking development here.

ETA, because this is IMPORTANT: In 10.01 and 10.02, Cas was so weakened HE WAS SLEEPING. He required SLEEP the weaker his grace became. Which is why Jack’s statement in 13.06 that he doesn’t sleep much is so worrying… it means his own “humanity” is losing out to his mojo… Dabb has used this exact metaphor for just how “human” Cas was becoming (and even back during s5 it was used to show just how weak Cas’s mojo was, in a shot nearly identical to Jack sleeping in the Impala in 13.02). So the fact that Jack isn’t really sleeping anymore is A Concern. Interestingly, Cas also described what he’d been doing in the empty as “sleeping,” until Jack’s call woke him up, and now Cas is back to not sleeping at all because he’s alive again. Okay, as you were.

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [heck that's a tag i haven't used much since s10 but there you go](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-that%27s-a-tag-i-haven%27t-used-much-since-s10-but-there-you-go) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22)[spn 10.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.02) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

[Jun 27, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/122596489640/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big)

26 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey, I was just curious, Cas said that he was big as the Chrysler Building, but s9 Gadreel was a tiny ball of light compared to that when he was going in and out of Sam? So are angels curled up really tight on Earth or something? Sorry for caffeine high rambling about the sizes of angel xp**

Ooh, yes! This also reminds me of [this discussion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/116382722325/musings-on-the-season-finale-death-lucifer-and) with [dustydreamsanddirtyscars](http://tmblr.co/m4J6yls3rYvF2fUHLnY_jJQ) that turned into musing on the nature of angel grace back in April (back in the Good Old Days when there was still speculation that Cas’s grace would be a part of the cure for the MoC. Aah, good times, good times). And hey! I actually found the post again AND linked to it. I feel so organized and productive now. :D

A large part of that conversation was about how grace could cure the mark, but I am a sucker for theoretical metaphysical analyses of the mechanics of the supernatural creatures on fictional television shows, and I’ve spent waaaay too much time thinking about what an angel is. This was my impression, which may or may not be relevant to whether an angel is made up of other stuff we can’t see, or if they’re just wadded up really small to squish themselves into a vessel. Hey, maybe Earth’s gravity works like an angelic car crusher and compresses their wavelengths. Or the atmosphere concentrates them down and they don’t go back to their full size until you mix them with water, or something. Whatever! It’s fun to think about, but I’m FINALLY getting to the point… *looks around for point* *finds open tab containing point*

> [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/122588077743/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big):
>
>> Omg “Are angels curled up really tight on Earth” :D New favourite phrase of the month.
>> 
>> I’ve wondered about that too, and I always figured the light (from the early seasons when showing angel possession on screen) and, like… angel smoke? or however you want to describe it compared to demon smoke… from season 9 onwards were one thing - kind of just a demonstration of their power in the same way Cas just glows when he’s peacocking and the blue eyes are that shining through, but he’s demonstrating the power more than the true form (hence all the flickering when his grace was fading) so we don’t see the shadows of more than wings - no extra heads or mile-high shadow or anything. I think the true forms are the eyeball-melting bit (like, we saw even in the early seasons, Cas hop from Claire to Jimmy on screen in polite company without burning any eyes out and was just represented as a transfer of light from one to the other, but Pamela tried sneaking a direct look at something entirely different) and so the true form would exist in a separate way from that. Possibly on a different dimension or something. Or only metaphorically.
> 
> I have seen two different ways grace is introduced to and removed from vessels. The first way is when angels get consent and enter the vessel through the mouth, taking over the vessel completely (personality, memory, etc.) They can also leave vessels this way, either voluntarily or because the host evicts them (such as we saw with Sam evicting Gadreel, once he was made aware that the angel was inside him in the first place).
> 
> In those circumstances, the grace seems to encompass the entirety of the angel. But in the alternate circumstances, such as when Metatron first stole Cas’s grace, and then Cas has now gone on to steal Metatron’s, it’s through a slice in the throat. The grace in that case seems to be little more than a power source, distinct from the rest of the angel’s being/memory/personality. I think this is why Cas doesn’t suddenly become Theo when he steals his grace to “angel up” again. It’s more like just the power portion of the grace is extracted in that case, and not the entirety of the angel’s being. (from the much longer discussion linked above)

In both of those cases, we get the same visual representation of the grace, the floaty blue cloud of light, even though it seems the clouds contain distinctly different elements (personality vs. power). Since power is the constant– in both types of grace transfer “mojo” is conveyed, while only one type gives the ‘possession by a being with a personality of its own” element– I’m choosing to believe that the glowy blue cloud is representational of the mojo, not of the angel.

I tried to think of a human body-related metaphor for this, but failed, because angels are just so not human (at least physically). But I got a car metaphor for you! Dean would be proud:

I think an angel could be visualized as a car with a full tank of gas.The gas takes up a much smaller volume of space than the whole car (maybe archangels are buses, or semis. huh. okay moving on)… But the only part of an angel that we can see with human eyeballs is the gas, sloshing around in a little invisible floating cube as the angel rumbles down the street in traffic… sorry I’m still not caught up on sleep. The car is still there, we just can’t interpret it with human eyeballs (hence the burning-out of said eyeballs when trying to see the whole angel).

Dean specifically has laid his eyeballs directly on the blue glowy stuff (I’m thinking specifically of when he stabbed Zachariah in the face and didn’t blink while watching him die, but there have been numerous other occasions where people watched angel grace float around without ill effect). (OH, in 9.09 Holy Terror, there was a lot of grace flying around this way and no burned out eyeballs. Remember the church group at the campfire? And the girl who only exploded when she tried to contain the grace inside her body? She’d been fine before that, just as Buddy Boyle was fine after watching it– or at least his eyeballs were undamaged. He probably wasn’t very okay mentally, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So yeah, point is I think the blob of light is specifically the mojo, not the whole angel. That was an awful lot of words to basically say “Yes, I have no argument with the above commentary, but I like to talk too much to leave it at that.”

[spn meta-ish attached to much better meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish-attached-to-much-better-meta) [or at least attached to much more concise meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-at-least-attached-to-much-more-concise-meta) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [castiel angelfish of the lord](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-angelfish-of-the-lord) [just throwing that tag in there for reference purposes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-throwing-that-tag-in-there-for-reference-purposes) [i really do spend way too much time thinking about this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-really-do-spend-way-too-much-time-thinking-about-this)

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

#  [Billie the Reaper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131221238390/billie-the-reaper)

[Oct 15, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131221238390/billie-the-reaper)

77 notes

From the way she was introduced, I first wondered if Billie was either the “New Death,” in a new vessel of sorts, and then immediately wondered if she was just a big boss reaper who’d stepped up to fill Death’s shoes somehow. Death had been referred to as “big daddy reaper” long ago on the show, so it’s not inconceivable that the void his “death” left behind (because yes I’m still balking about the notion that Death can be completely killed) would be filled by one of his other reapers. Power vacuum might’ve sucked the next best candidate (or closest available candidate) in to take over.

Whoever she is, and whatever power she has, I loved her. But to me, she also brought about the most terrifying part of a really creepy episode. Her warning to Sam outright scared the crap outta me.

The Winchesters never asked for their lives. They were manipulated into position long before their parents even met. Heck, Heaven ENGINEERED their parents meeting, just so they could be born  _to serve Heaven’s own purposes_. How many generations of people had to be moved around the chessboard by angels and cupids to get everyone in place for the Apocalypse? And then these two boys are born into tragedy and raised as hunters to fulfill a supposed destiny. The one thing they were ever promised (and again promised in every season finale intro sequence) was peace when they were done.

How many of their resurrections have we actually seen? When they finally showed up in the Garden and spoke with Joshua in 5.16, it was implied that they’ve been dead and in Heaven multiple times before, but those memories were erased. That time, he wanted them to remember

Again,  _they never asked for this_.

That brings me to Billie’s assertion that the next time they died, the reapers are through with them. Nothing awaits them. They’re going to be split into atoms and thrown into the void. She basically told Sam there’s no peace at the end of their road now– no Heaven (as isolating and boring as Heaven has been shown to be, there is a bit of peace, some sense of happiness), no Hell, even– only nothingness.

Without Death to stand as their protector, ensuring whatever Grand Plan the Winchesters were engineered to fill comes to fruition, the reapers are done with them. It looks like Dean finally managed to tear up the ending, and there are some actual stakes on the line for the Winchesters now (and I’m including Castiel in this, since the angels have disavowed him and essentially declared him a Winchester).

That’s freaking TERRIFYING.

Then again, after everything they’ve both been through, and it kills me to say this, maybe at this point they’d actually prefer permanent and total annihilation to riding this endless merry-go-round they were born into.

Great now I’m crying again.

 

 

[spn 11.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.02) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [Billie the reaper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Billie-the-reaper) [dean winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester) [sam winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-winchester) [castiel angelfish of the lord](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-angelfish-of-the-lord) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [really and truly that was the most terrifying bit of the whole episode for me](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/really-and-truly-that-was-the-most-terrifying-bit-of-the-whole-episode-for-me)


	4. Chapter 4

[Nov 5, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/132616360265/is-anyone-else-seeing-parallels-between-amara-and)

40 notes

Is anyone else seeing parallels between Amara and S4 Castiel? Specifically the first few episodes before Cas really began to understand Dean and how he thinks?

At the beginning, Cas had like zero understanding of how Dean could have no faith, or why he would resist falling into line with Heaven’s plans for him, back before Cas understood any human references, and had no concept of free will or what it means for humans.

Now we have Amara who’s only experience of humanity is through her presumed ‘bond’ with Dean, and whatever she’s managed to absorb through the lessons Crowley had been exposing her to (even if she’s branching out on her own an looking at nature photography on the side). She’s even more of a blank slate about what makes humans  _human_  than Cas was. And just like Cas, she’s  _learning_. She’s  _adapting_. She is literally growing.

Cas initially wasn’t operating on any sense of “morality,” he was just following orders without question. Amara is also coming from a point of view that doesn’t consider any sort of “morality,” but in expressing concern for Sydney (Hey, drunk girl, you shouldn’t drive, you could go through the windshield *which was sort of a callback to the ghoulpire going through Baby’s windshield in 11.04 as well*), she’s demonstrating that she is at least learning, and willing to learn, about humanity. And I find this fascinating.

 

[spn 11.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.05) [i am so sorry for my endless amara headcanons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-am-so-sorry-for-my-endless-amara-headcanons) [wherein mittens thinks out loud to the general dismay of her followers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-mittens-thinks-out-loud-to-the-general-dismay-of-her-followers) [the woman in the eye of the storm](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-woman-in-the-eye-of-the-storm) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F) [castiel angelfish of the lord](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-angelfish-of-the-lord)


	5. Chapter 5

May 23, 2017

486 notes

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/39d2a814e8ce328793e3d699d528127b/tumblr_oq71dzMuFS1sjnjpmo1_1280.png)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/3b52ab6416df213a50934c65cbd83d9f/tumblr_oq71dzMuFS1sjnjpmo2_250.png)   


[margarittet](http://margarittet.tumblr.com/post/160981370608/tinkdw-bold-sartorial-statement):

> [tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/160980062617/bold-sartorial-statement-obsessionisaperfume):
>
>> [bold-sartorial-statement](http://bold-sartorial-statement.tumblr.com/post/160973774703/obsessionisaperfume):
>>
>>> [obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/160972413712/ibelieveinthelittletreetopper-rosewhipped22):
>>>
>>>> [ibelieveinthelittletreetopper](http://ibelieveinthelittletreetopper.tumblr.com/post/160971149603/rosewhipped22-mittensmorgul-rosewhipped22):
>>>>
>>>>> [rosewhipped22](http://rosewhipped22.tumblr.com/post/160970577068/mittensmorgul-rosewhipped22-rosewhipped22):
>>>>>
>>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160969515320/rosewhipped22-rosewhipped22-anyone-recognize):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [rosewhipped22](http://rosewhipped22.tumblr.com/post/160965792178/rosewhipped22-anyone-recognize-this-symbol):
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [rosewhipped22](http://rosewhipped22.tumblr.com/post/160833644783/anyone-recognize-this-symbol-carving-hearts-and):
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Anyone recognize this symbol?? Carving hearts and initials on trees is a thing…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> So I don’t know anything about symbols, but I haven’t seen anyone talking about this so I did a little research. At first I thought this symbol looked a little familiar especially the circles on the ends of the straight lines, but I’m probably thinking of the symbol John drew to summon Azazel (which could be significant with the princes of hell storyline that is currently happening–we haven’t seen Amodeus yet).
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Other than that, it looks like a heart and an anchor to me. Googling that led me to Hearts, Anchors, and Crosses as symbols significant to early Christian religion. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Two different answers given on [Quora](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWhat-do-the-symbols-of-a-heart-a-cross-and-an-anchor-mean&t=YmUyMjcxMWQ1ZmQzZGY0MWNhNDA2Y2RiY2I1ODlhMzI1ZWZhYzZjNixmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1) regarding meaning:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The  _cross_ , the  _anchor_ , and the  _heart_  represent the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity respectively. It is based on the cross and anchor symbol used by the early Christians in the catacombs, the added heart representing humanity. 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> **Cross is a symbol of faith, anchor is the symbol of hope and the heart is there for love/charity.**  Cross and heart are considered symbols of faith and love in the secular symbol interpretation as well, while the interpretation of anchor as a symbol of hope lies in the idea of a safe haven, safe harbor for the sailors in storm, and it is referenced in Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament:  _We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain._
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> [ This article on the meaning is very interestin](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianitytoday.com%2Fhistory%2F2008%2Faugust%2Fwhat-is-origin-of-anchor-as-christian-symbol-and-why-do-we.html&t=NDU2MWMyMmEyNTk4YzJhNGEwZTRhZjdlZjhiYWU4MzM3MTdiNWJiMyxmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1)g. Some excerpts:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Christian use of the anchor echoed Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.“ 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> (on why the anchor is no longer used) Their most common explanation is that as  **the Empire went from persecuting the Church to sponsoring it,** Christians  **no longer needed secret symbols to identify themselves**. Constantine’s conquering cross replaced  **the anchor as a source of encouragement to believers in troubled waters.**
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Now  _this_  seems like something Kelly might choose to paint for her unborn child that has been called evil. This representation of her faith and her hope that her child will lift the world to its feet. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Those bolded bits made me think of bi!Dean and Destiel on the show and how it’s FINALLY starting to move out of subtext and into the main text. (Hello mixtape! Hello Cas’s I Love You!)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Plus, with more than one reference to water I start thinking of ships. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> And “… the idea of a safe haven, safe harbor for the sailors in storm” or “the anchor as a source of encouragement to believers in troubled waters.”
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Opposite the wall where Kelly is painting we have this painting:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>   
> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> It looks like a storm could’ve just passed. Light and sky seem to be breaking through the clouds.  The waters are rough still, a little choppy, but the two guys onboard made it through the storm alive. The ship is still sailing. 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Since this is all Kelly’s doing, Kelly’s wishes and hopes for Jack, I’ll buy it. But also, I think there are three people on that boat… (I am tempted to call them Team Free Will)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [@larinah](https://tmblr.co/mIsONy1xJeKnsCBiQikgzfQ) identified the painting as  [“Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)” by Winslow Homer.](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBreezing_Up_%28A_Fair_Wind%29&t=MzVmYTI5MGY4NTc3MDkxODM1NzM3YzY4MDg3YzIxYjRjMzNjZjVhYyxmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1)  Thanks!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _**Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)**_  is an oil painting by American artist [Winslow Homer](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWinslow_Homer&t=ZTIzNzM2ZTM2MjAxMzcxNGY3NmQ2MGVjYjQ1MzgzYTU1MDZlM2IxMixmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1). It depicts a [catboat](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCatboat&t=OTRmYmEzOWJhMDhmNmE0MjM2OTM5NDMyNTJiMmJlNTMwZDllNTA5MSxmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1) called the  _Gloucester_  chopping through that city’s harbor under “a fair wind” (Homer’s original title). Inside the boat are a man, three boys, and their catch.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> More from wiki:   
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The painting’s message is positive; despite the choppy waves, the boaters look relaxed. The anchor that replaced the boy in the bow was understood to symbolize hope.[[2]](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBreezing_Up_%28A_Fair_Wind%29%23cite_note-C2-2&t=ZGVjNmU2ZTllOGIxMTI4MjcwMTg1YjBkZDg1YjQwOWQ4YjIxNzllYSxmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1)The boy holding the tiller looks forward to the horizon, a statement of optimism about his future and that of the young United States.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Well well
>>>>> 
>>>>> And did In an ep where Dean and Cas are…dean and Cas and Cas DIES did they really give us a picture of a ship on choppy seas.
>>>> 
>>>> JERRY FUCKIN WANEK, MAN.
>>> 
>>> Fuck, I had a long reply and the app ate it.
>>> 
>>> I don’t know if any of y'all are Christians, but I used to be. The “heart, cross and anchor” is still a popular symbol in churches and on religious jewellery. It’s a reference to 1 Cor 13:13, from the chapter about love. Read the whole thing. (It’s usually read at weddings. I had that and a [gaaaay!] section from Ruth read at mine.)
>>> 
>>> [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=NIV](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fpassage%2F%3Fsearch%3D1%2BCorinthians%2B13%26version%3DNIV&t=MDZiMTI3NDk3NDM3Y2ZmZTYwNjA3M2IyYmIzYzMyNGZiNWNhNDYwYyxmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1)
>>> 
>>> The painting makes me think of Jesus calming the storm.
>>> 
>>> Luke 8:23-25 New International Version (NIV)
>>> 
>>> 23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.
>>> 
>>> 24 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”
>>> 
>>> He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. 25 “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.
>>> 
>>> In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”
>>> 
>>> [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+8%3A23-25&version=NIV](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fpassage%2F%3Fsearch%3DLuke%2B8%253A23-25%26version%3DNIV&t=YmRjYTNiNzVjNTEyOTdiN2MwMjQ1MzcxYTE5ZGE2ZmIxN2I2ZmJkMixmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1)
>>> 
>>> …which in turn is an NT reference to Psalms.
>>> 
>>> Psalm 107:29 New International Version (NIV)
>>> 
>>> 29 He stilled the storm to a whisper;  
>     the waves of the sea[a] were hushed.
>>> 
>>> [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+107:29&version=NIV](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fpassage%2F%3Fsearch%3DPsalm%2B107%3A29%26version%3DNIV&t=ZWRkMTBmMGFlOWU1Mjc2YjU4YzlkZDZiMDkwY2FkNDQ5OGYwM2Y3YixmR2FjQ0o2Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160984386600%2Fmargarittet-tinkdw&m=1)
>>> 
>>> So, with all the Christ imagery all over the place, it’d make me really happy if Cas rose from the dead on the third day. (Didn’t that happen with Sam in S2? I need to rewatch AHBL.)
>> 
>> I love all of you.
>> 
>> This. On top of the grenade launcher to Dean’s facade and to the blaze of glory style death, Sam’s MoL/hunter leadership role, Cas’s untimely but transformative death, Mary’s last I LOVE YOU as she sacrifices herself for her boys coupled with Kelly’s finale I LOVE YOU whilst lit up like the sun as she sacrifices her life for her child …. make me believe there is so little chance that Jack will end up as evil, it makes my speculative heart so warm and fuzzy :)
>
>> If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 
>> 
>> Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.(…)
>> 
>> And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
> 
> One of the most beautiful parts in the Bible. And, as said above, a pretty standard part of the wedding mess. Each one I attended had it read.
> 
> I feel all warm inside.

Source: [rosewhipped22](http://rosewhipped22.tumblr.com/post/160833644783/anyone-recognize-this-symbol-carving-hearts-and)

Reblogged from [treefrogie84](https://treefrogie84.tumblr.com/post/160983538902/margarittet-tinkdw)

[spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

 

# Wayward: Supernatural in Parallels (and a parallel universe as well)

Jan 20, 2018

140 notes

aka I have spent the last four hours typing again, so here you go. :P

(at least I managed to keep it under 6k words this time!)

(shut up that’s kinda brief for me… now if only I could write 6k of fic in 4 hours I’d really be on to something…)

Wayward Sisters set itself up admirably as a spinoff, if for no other reason than it’s so deeply rooted in the original series without actually  _being_  that series. We already know all six of the main characters (some of them for nearly a decade, like Claire and Jody), and we know at least a little bit about about how they came to be where they are at the start of 13.10. But even more than that, this episode served so many parallels to the entirety of Supernatural’s past canon, but did so in ways that take all of those themes and wove something entirely new out of them.

All the seeds for the spinoff grew from the original, but they’ve been sown in a new field.

I needed to record as many of these as possible for future reference.

(under a cut because as I said, it’s like 5900 words deep and it’s 2:23 am and I am so not up to editing this tonight.)

The little girl Claire saves from the two werewolves in the cold open looked so familiar to me– because she reminded me of the ghost girl in 2.11 Playthings. Not technically a parallel, but even from the promo clip with her in it my brain insisted that I’d seen her somewhere before.

Mr. Werewolf and his terrible knock knock joke was such a dark mirror to Kate the werewolf in 8.04. If she was the noble version, he’s the grotesque, right down to the way he uses almost the exact same movements to terrify an innocent as Kate used to get revenge on the guy who’d turned her against her will and murdered her boyfriend. The Winchesters rightly let Kate go (TWICE!) but Claire rightly kills this jerk.

Not to mention Claire’s very personal history with werewolves (and being one bite of a heart away from becoming one herself) in 12.16. This case, and rescuing a little curly-haired blonde girl from werewolves is a tidy metaphor for how Claire has developed as a hunter since we’ve seen her last. And she absolutely PROVES that she’s learned. She doesn’t hunt dumb like she did back in 11.12. She does her homework, and knew exactly what she was doing when she approached Mr. Werewolf’s lair. She knew exactly who she was there to save, how to approach the werewolf lair most effectively (DELIVERY! LAND SHARK!), and she kept her cool throughout the entire fight– for the sake of the little girl.

This entire fight is also reminiscent of 11.17, just for the fact that she’s physically proving herself as capable as Sam and Dean are in a werewolf fight.

Her rescue of Amanda Fitzmartin from werewolves was a direct parallel of 12.06, and Mary Winchester’s rescue of Asa Fox from… you guessed it, a werewolf! Right down to the mother/child reunion scene on the front porch. I can only imagine that Amanda Fitzmartin may be a future generation hunter now, too… Then again, Asa took up hunting because Mary told him she was “retiring,” and he felt obligated to fill her shoes so that  _someone_  would be out there saving people. Claire told Amanda that everything would be okay, and then went right on hunting. Claire’s in a very different place than Mary was, despite the similarities.

Jody’s call to Claire– “It’s Sam and Dean. They’re missing. They were on a hunting trip, and I haven’t heard from them for a few days.” Well, isn’t that just THE iconic line of the entire series? 1.01, top of the script, hello Dean Winchester. Not to mention 12.20 and how Alicia used the same line about her mother to get Sam and Dean’s help in finding her.

What’s DIFFERENT in Jody’s plea to Claire is, “It’s time to come home.” Home has always been such a nebulous concept for the Winchesters. For the longest time, the only home they knew was Baby. Their “apple pie life” was a pipe dream that they wavered on ever really believing they could have it, or if they even really  _wanted it_ the few times it seemed like it could be within their reach (Dean with Lisa after s5, Sam with Jess pre-series, Sam with Amelia after s7). It took a while, but they both now identify the Bunker as “home,” despite it not being a home in the traditional sense. And after Dean’s words to Cas in 13.06– “Welcome home” as he hugged him at some alley payphone– I believe their concept of “home” is more “the people we care about” rather than a fixed physical point on a map, you know? And after watching Wayward, and oopsie here jumping to the end for just a second, Claire says, “I’m staying because I need them, my family.” In both series, home is where the heart is, if you will.

Of all the hunters Alex could’ve mentioned that she’d tried calling while looking for Sam and Dean, she mentions Donna (who we’ll see in a bit here), and WALT. Aka one of the guys who killed Sam and Dean way back in 5.16, and who returned in 12.22 to help take down the BMoL.

Claire and Alex’s gentle teasing of each other is just… so dang  _sisterly_. In the same way that Sam and Dean’s teasing of each other is just so dang brotherly, you know? “Did you miss me?” “No, not really.” Lines delivered deadpan followed up with the knowing little smiles.

Claire pointing to her cut lip and telling Jody, “It’s just a werewolf, no big deal.” Well, isn’t that exactly what Dean told Sonny in 9.07 when Sonny questioned him on how his wrists were injured? And heck, how many times has Dean diminished the seriousness of an injury with an “I’m fine” or a “no big deal.” To the point where in 12.23 when he meets up with Cas again, Cas doesn’t even bother asking if he’s okay, just rolls his eyes and heals Dean with a lil boop.

“When did we become huggers?” Well, Sam, Dean, and Cas seem to ask this of themselves every time they find themselves hugging… at least they used to. They’ve since become acclimated to the fact that yes, they are huggers.

Claire’s discovered that Jody let patience move into her room, borrow her sweatshirt, while she was away. But she takes the blame for leaving on herself. This calls back to a lot of the emotional baggage between Sam and Dean over the years in a far less toxic fashion (You chose a demon over your own brother? You didn’t look for me in Purgatory? Who are you gonna replace me with next? There’s a lot of that between the brothers.) But Claire lets it go. And they have Business to attend to…

Alex tends Claire’s wounds during their meeting to share what they’ve gathered so far about Sam and Dean’s disappearance, and then Alex gets up to leave for work. She has a job– a real, regular job as a nurse (how respectable! In Dean’s words from 2.20). Claire is upset, because finding Sam and Dean should come first, but Alex doesn’t even argue about it. The entire dynamic is similar to Sam and Dean’s motivations in 1.01. Sam had a law school interview that he didn’t want to miss (which Dean initially assumed was a job interview), and described as his whole future on a plate. But Dean insisted they already had “the family business.” Just as Claire insisted her own job is hunting. Unlike Sam and Dean, Alex and Claire work this out in their own way, and Alex DOES go off to work. Her job is just as important as hunting to her, and she doesn’t compromise on that.

Patience’s visions in this context are so reminiscent of Sam’s visions back in the early days. She’s still trying to figure out exactly how they work, and exactly what they mean. And in a lot of ways what Clare seems to be feeling is a reflection of Dean in 2.05 when Andy mind-controls him into telling the truth, “He’s psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you’re a murderer, and he’s afraid that he’s going to become one himself, ‘cause you’re all part of something that’s terrible. And, I hope to hell that he’s wrong, but I’m starting to get a little scared that he might be right.”

It’s not an exact parallel, but the same sort of disbelief and maybe even a little bit (or a lot) of fear over what those visions might mean. And Claire addresses this later in this episode when she’s talking to Kaia while Jody and Donna are investigating the ship. So I’ll get back to that later… I’m finding it’s really difficult to take this scene by scene…

Claire’s difficulty with Jody “smothering” her while hunting reminds me A LOT of both Dean’s difficulty with John (when Dean first began to break away from blind obedience to John’s every order toward the end of s1), as well as Sam’s difficulty with Dean. How many times has Sam pulled the “I’m not a little kid anymore, I can do this” card on Dean? Exactly. This growth process hurts, and it’s terrifying, but it’s a give and take on both sides, and Claire and Jody both grow a lot by it. Because it’s not just Claire wanting to prove she’s capable, it’s also Jody’s abject fear of losing ANOTHER CHILD to the Supernatural. She would give anything not to have to relive what she went through with her son in 5.15. And Claire does begin to understand Jody’s point of view, as Jody begins to understand Claire’s. And after Dean admitted to Mary in 12.22 that he’s been both mother and father to Sam most of his life, this exact same dynamic can be applied to his over-protectiveness of Sam. There’s a balance to be found between Claire’s “run in head first” and Jody’s “find the perfect plan.”

Speaking of balance, Alex seems to have found a balance that works for her. It’s been a long time since 9.19 when Jody gave her a foundation to build a new life on, and as Jody said in 10.08 and we saw first-hand in 11.12, it wasn’t always easy. But Alex found a career that makes her happy, and in return she’s happy to help Jody with whatever she needs, be it housekeeping or monsters. She seems…  _settled_. And she confirms to Claire that Jody (and by extension Alex herself) never stopped worrying (or thinking) about Claire even when she wasn’t around. It was a solid confirmation to Claire that yes, she’s still part of their family, regardless. And wow, how many times has this sentiment been expressed in Supernatural? Too many to count.

And Claire and Alex get their emotional baggage handled and properly stowed, and it’s right back to the Big Issue at hand. Where we discover that despite all their differences, they’re both on exactly the same page. Claire suggests searching the hospital database for “rock star aliases” in case Sam and Dean have been injured, and Alex confirms she already searched for practically every rock musician she could think of, “From metal gods to obscure hair bands.” And of course “obscure hair bands” makes me think of poor old Vince Vincente and Ladyheart back in s12. Their third album wasn’t terrible… :P

Incredibly enough, a new search for Jane Doe leads Claire to find Kaia in that very hospital (and heck, is it Sioux Falls General? Aka where Dr. Monsterface worked back in 7.02?) Claire finds Kaia and confronts her about Sam and Dean, and instead of needing to be broken out of “child prison” (10.09 for Claire) or rehab (13.09 for Kaia), they both walk out of the hospital. Except oops… there’s some Bad Things waiting for Kaia outside. She freezes in fear and Claire comes to the rescue… but Jody also came to the rescue, and only working together did they kill the Bad Thing.

Warning that here the Destiel Parallels become impossible to ignore or avoid. They’re just blatantly there, so freaking deal with it.

In the hospital, the first time Claire and Kaia see on another we get increasing close-ups of their eyes. Like… welcome to intense eye contact city. The scene is punctuated with an eerie swooshing sound effect to make it impossible to ignore as A Significant Thing.

Back at Jody’s while Alex goes from Nurse Mode into Monster Autopsy mode (snapping that glove on like a regular Dana Scully), Claire and Kaia have a Bonding Moment outside– comparing scars. As we pointed out back in 11.15, Dean did this exact same thing while bonding with his childhood idol Gunner Lawless (and yes, not Destiel per se here, but definitely a queercoding of Dean and the exact nature of his youthful infatuation with this wrestler). And the trope started with a scene from Lethal Weapon 3, where Riggs bonded with his wife-to-be in the exact same fashion. And Claire and Kaia’s bonding over this is again shown to us through significant eye contact and smiles, and then beginning to open up about themselves in ways we’ve been told that Kaia never opens up to  _anyone_. At least based off what we know of her from 13.09. This is Significant for both her and Claire, who’s been hunting alone for at least a year now. (like… all the Destiel parallels intended)

Back to the Monster Autopsy… this is so reminiscent of 7.09 for me, as a lot of this episode is. I was half waiting for the monster to sit up and start fighting again just like the monster formerly known as Gerald Browder did in 7.09. But unlike Gerald who’d been human until the “creatures from another dimension” got hold of him and fed him grey goop and turned him into a monster, the thing on the table in 13.10 is… really not even remotely human (and it wore a strange mask anyway, in a season of “masked things” and misidentified things). I even tweeted at one point while watching the first time that the monster’s blood was even visually reminiscent of the TDK Slammer goo. Which is interesting because in 13.03 when we first met Patience, there was a billboard announcing that the TDK Slammer was back at Biggerson’s for a limited time. And isn’t that just entirely amusing.

(also a depressing but necessary side note about 7.09– the episode ends with Bobby shot through the head by Dick Roman. Dick was a thing that looked like another thing, a thing from “another reality” aka Purgatory in his case. But something that absolutely was not supposed to be on Earth. And of course 13.10 uses a LOT of parallels between Purgatory and The Bad Place. I’ll get to those soon.)

Claire convinces Kaia to open up about what she knows of this strange monster and where it came from, and therefore what happened to Sam and Dean. Kaia was convinced that if Sam and Dean are in the Bad Place, then they’re already dead. Much like Dean was convinced that Mary must already be dead in 13.01 when she was trapped in the War World. And much like Sam was convinced that Dean was already dead when he was trapped in Purgatory back in 8.01. And yet…

Sam and Dean are just having a lil camping trip. Well, Dean’s adjusted SCARY FAST to the Bad Place. I suppose that compared to Purgatory it’s kind of a garden spot. They say they’ve been there for two days already, and they haven’t seemed to have run into anything that’s threatened them. It’s not the sort of 360 degree combat we saw Dean endure in Purgatory anyway. He’s even bothered to stop for barbecue. Well, he’s bothered to trap a lizard and roast it over a fire he managed to build.

Poor Sam, meanwhile, looks disgusted at the mere thought of eating the monster land lizard, and rather uncomfortable in general. In the face of Sam’s uneasiness and insistence that they continue to look for the door back to their universe, Dean maintains his exceedingly practical outlook. “Eat up.” They’ve been there two days, they have no reason to believe the door is even still open, and nobody knows where to look for them. He’s been in this exact same spot before, in Purgatory, and learned very quickly there that you do or your die. There’s no point wasting energy fretting about it. I think it must be a switch he can just flip at will at this point, into Purgatory!Dean. We saw it in 12.15. We’ve seen it a few times since s8, actually. It’s unsettling, but it’s practical. It’s how you survive.

When the monster closes in on their little campsite, Dean takes his roast lizard on a stick to go. Unbeknownst to Sam and Dean, something human-shaped has been following them. They’ve seen nothing to raise their suspicions that it might even be a possibility that anything human-ish lives in that world, or that anything might pose a threat to them aside from the giant monster they keep hearing. They’ve been there just long enough to shift their priorities on what to keep their attention focused on that just by waiting them out, Darth Kaia is able to sneak right up to these two men who at ANY other time would’ve been on high alert about being followed. Like in 8.13 Dean had his “gay thing” with Aaron following him around, and Sam had “something stuck to my shoe,” aka their code word for “I’m being followed.” They have a LONG history of being hyperaware of their surroundings, so it took some kind of patience for Darth Kaia to wait them out like that.

Patience has a crisis of normality after watching the monster autopsy. She’s not sure she can handle the hunting life, and it’s Alex who convinces her to stay. Which is incredible because this was Alex’s crisis back in 11.12 when her own history caught up with her at a time when all she wanted was to be normal, to go to school and have a boyfriend and maybe go to nursing school. She didn’t want anything to do with monsters or hunting, as she and Claire talked about earlier at the hospital, but she’s found a balance that she can live with. She knows she can truly help Jody by helping with the hunting stuff when she can, and that it doesn’t have to be her entire life like it is for Claire. She can do both! And she also knows her limits. Alex isn’t a fighter for the most part, and Patience doesn’t have to be either. They can each have an important place there, though. “We help in other ways.”

As Patience is packing her car to leave, she has another vision of Jody’s house being overrun by monsters. Claire wants to stay and fight, but Patience argues back that they can’t win. And hooboy this is a fascinating parallel to 3.12, in about six different ways. RIP Victor Henriksen. Patience laying down the truth to Claire, and then using an interesting bit of technology to demonstrate the truth of the situation, much as Dean laid the truth out for Victor and Sam used an interesting bit of technology to trap and exorcise a gaggle of demons all at once.

For Sam and Dean, 3.12 also marked one of the points in the show where they were officially declared legally “dead.” It was a turning point for them, which in a strange way freed them up to do their jobs more effectively with far less concern over interference from human authorities, so they could focus on the monsters. In a way, this moment functions in a similar fashion for Patience, not that she’s going to be cut off from society as drastically as Dean and Sam were, but as a liberation of sorts, and an affirmation to herself that her visions are as important to the group as Claire’s fighting skills or Alex’s nursing skills. They all have a role to play. This just helps her find her way to it.

In some ways it’s also reminiscent of 3.15, and the trap Dean left for Bela at their motel, similar to the trap Aragorn helps the hobbits lay for the Ringwraiths in Bree. These monsters aren’t so much fooled by a trap, or decoy bodies left in beds, but they do arrive to an empty house while their quarry has managed to flee. I think this tactic has been used elsewhere in Supernatural, but since I’m just about at the halfway point of the episode and this essay is already nearing 3500 words, I figure I should probably try to be more concise…

Me… more concise. Talk about your freaky AU scenarios…

Whatever. Claire watches the monsters tear up Jody’s house via webcam, and she gets a sudden, shocking, undeniable lesson in the reliability of Patience’s visions, which brings to bear the full weight of the vision that brought her home in the first place, and the reasons that Jody was so terrified for Claire’s safety. For the first time all day, Claire is rattled. It’s one thing to go through life as a hunter knowing how hunters typically end up (and hello all 39 iterations of Dean’s “point of a blade or barrel of a gun” speech), but to know _specifically_  how you’re going to die is entirely different. This was s3 Dean with the ticking clock to Hellhound Day. This was Sam during the Hell Trials.

And enter the D-Train. The ray of sunshine so chill that butter doesn’t melt in her mouth. And like the monster that signalled her first REAL introduction to the supernatural back in 10.08, Jody introduces her as someone who’s killed a lot of vampires. To think Claire wondered when they all became huggers before… “You too, Rainbow Brite. Come on, bring it in.” Donna brought the hugs. And the angel wing imagery behind her in this scene, combined with her nice tan coat. She’s our angel; our sunshine, as it were. And armed to the teeth (just the basics, because she’s from Minnesota).

Alex proves yet again that she’s an excellent Sam parallel, using the phone and Kaia’s vague clues to find the exact location where the rift opened. Please oh please let Alex have the same sort of Magical Wifi that Sam does. :P

When Jody and Donna leave to investigate the shipyard, Jody has Claire stay behind to protect the other girls, much like John used to do with Dean, ordering him to protect Sam. I mean, it has nowhere NEAR the sort of ick factor to John doing that in the flashback scenes in 1.18, for example, but there has been a consistent implication throughout the series that it was a constant state for Dean, and thank HECK this dynamic between Jody and Claire is shattered by the end of this episode.  
  


Jody’s actually surprised when Claire agrees to stay and protect the other girls without much of a fight, because of what Patience’s vision might mean for her, as I mentioned above.

Donna asking who knows how to use a flamethrower… honestly Dean would be jealous. He and Sam have always had their jury-rigged camping fuel flamethrowers when they’ve needed literal firepower like in 3.02 and 4.05 among others.

Speaking of Sam and Dean, back in the Bad Place, Sam’s finally figuring out that they’re in an entirely different universe, and Dean’s annoyed by how muddy it is. Which was a rather hilarious reversal of Sam’s reaction to stepping in horse poop the moment they landed in Sunrise, Wyoming in 1861 way back in 6.18. Sam complained about the state of his boot, and Dean was all excited because AUTHENTICITY! But he’d been wearing his lil cowboy costume at the time, and we know how much Dean loves cowboys, despite the fact that he was far less enamored with “authenticity” and how much germier it was than he’d been expecting… but once he adapted his expectations back in 6.18, he kinda stepped right into the role of sheriff, just like he’s able to adapt to Purgatory and to eating monster lizard despite the germiness factor. He’s a delightful but thoroughly consistent bundle of contradictions, and I love him.

Enter Darth Kaia, who catches them entirely unaware and off guard. They were entirely convinced that the only potential danger to them in this world was whatever huge thing they kept hearing in the distance. They hadn’t run into any of the creepy Monster Autopsy critters that constantly plagued Kaia in The Bad Place, and after two days, it’s entirely understandable that they would begin to let their guard down at least a little bit. Heck, it’s like Westley and Buttercup in the Fire Swamp, except nobody ever told them about the ROUS’s. When Darth Kaia sprang out of nowhere at them in full-on kung fu attack mode  _with a spear_ , they were honestly lucky to survive. They’d been flung as far from the portal into that world as Kaia was flung out to that abandoned roadside where the ambulance found her and had picked a random direction to wander in search of a portal the size of a party streamer in an entirely foreign universe. A portal they weren’t entirely sure was still there to find in the first place. Everything about their situation had them on their heels for once, even more so than Purgatory did for Dean (where he was at least expecting to be attacked from the moment he landed, by a pack of red-eyed monsters he later referred to as “gorilla wolves” in 8.02). And funny that the Big Monster in the Bad Place has a skull that vaguely resembles a gorilla, and the smaller red-eyed monsters were scripted as “Canids,” aka “dog-like monsters.” Again, in so many ways, The Bad Place is similar in design and function to Purgatory.

Back at the abandoned shipyard, Jody and Donna find the Impala and know they’ve found the right place. They find the melted angel blade and scorched angel wings from 13.09, as well as the portal, but encounter a very large pack of the “Canids.”

Claire and Kaia have another heart to heart reminiscent of some of Dean and Cas’s conversations. Claire expresses some of the same sorts of self-doubt and fear that Dean did at the end of 4.16 while lying in the hospital bed, telling Cas it’s too big, and he can’t do it. But Claire feels she can’t stand back and let others handle this alone. Kaia encourages her with, “If you go, I’ll go with you.” And how many times have we heard Dean and Cas offer this to each other? Very recently in Dean’s offer to accompany Cas to his angel meeting in 13.07. But also highly notably in 11.23 when Cas offered to go with Dean to face Amara. In situations large and small, they have offered to go with each other. But unlike the majority of Dean and Cas’s I’ll go with you’s,  _Claire accepts Kaia’s offer_. They DO stand together. They ACCEPT the help and support. (Can we please have this gradually begin to happen with Cas and Dean? I mean, even something small like Dean running out to pick up pizza or something, and Cas offers to go with him, and Dean’s like YES GOOD I WOULD LIKE THAT.)

“Maybe together we can save them.”

Meanwhile at the rift, Donna wants to go back and tell the girls they found it, but Jody is ready to go into the rift alone. “If I don’t, she will.” She knows Claire would run into danger to do what she believed was right. That’s how you save people, after all. But here we see into what’s motivating Jody to protect Claire from danger– “I can’t lose another child.” And I know I mentioned this about 3k words ago, but the Canids pose an immediate threat and Jody is forced to turn back from running headlong into the rift the way she was trying to prevent Claire from doing. This motivation to self-sacrifice to save someone else– a child– is what motivated John’s deal with Azazel in 2.01 in exchange for Dean’s life, and what motivated Dean to sell his own soul in 2.22 in exchange for Sam’s life. Jody’s only saved by circumstance, but it gives her a chance to step back and reevaluate that choice, and to see Claire clearly, to let go of her need to protect Claire at all cost.

Back in the Bad Place, Sam and Dean come to tied to a couple of trees in a foggy forest. I feel like yelling, “I hope your apple pie is freaking worth it!” because this feels just like 1.11. Instead of being sacrificed to the scarecrow, they’re being sacrificed to the Kaiju.

Meanwhile Claire has tried to call Jody, but when Jody doesn’t answer, Claire goes immediately into Concerned Mode. All four girls unite immediately into “Together we can save them” mode. And it’s beautiful.

Donna and Jody take refuge in an abandoned car aboard the ship, lying across the front and back seats in a configuration identical to the way Sam and Dean slept in 11.04– the Winchester Motel. But instead of a cooler full of beer, Jody and Donna have a swarm of Canids trying to figure out how to get at them.

(wherein we discover that Canids are really not the smartest monsters…)

If they make a run for it, they’re dead, but if they stay put they’re dead too. Kinda feels like a situation typical of Supernatural, yes? What they need is a miraculous intervention.

*enter the flamethrower*

And Claire is so chill and competent with her flamethrower that it brings a smile to Jody’s face. And in that moment she might still hate the whole idea of it, but she knows she’s gonna let Claire go through that portal without  _too_  much fuss… especially after she realizes that the portal is shrinking. Claire tries to run through it and Jody holds her back, though not to stop her. To tell her she knows. Jody understands. As much as Claire needed to save Sam and Dean, Jody needed her to know that she understood.

Donna, ray of sunshine and weapons training officer. OKIE DOKE, HERE YA GO. and then “Oh there he is! Hiya, buddy!” When there was just ONE Canid, but Donna absolutely does not lose her cool when she sees it’s a veritable swarm of the things coming at them. Bless. “Okie doke” reminded me so much of that security guard in 2.12 that Dean liked because he said “okie dokie.”

Kaia knows right where Sam and Dean probably are in the Bad Place, just from the sound of the Kaiju monster. Claire shows up and cuts Sam and Dean free in a circumstance reminiscent of Sam showing up to cut Dean and Emily free in 1.11.

At the portal, Kaia shoves Claire out of the way just in time to save her from Darth Kaia’s spear, and instead she takes the spear wound to her own side. Need I even bring up all the Fisher King symbolism here that was so incredibly prominent in s12 surrounding Cas? The comparison has already been made to Ramiel stabbing Cas with the Lance of Michael, but it wasn’t just that one episode that draped Cas in Fisher King/Wounded King parallels. I believe many of those also apply to Kaia…

As she lay there dying, she reaches out and grabs hold of Claire’s hand while Sam and Dean have drawn their angel blades to stand off against the now apparently disarmed Darth Kaia. Except that’s when the Kaiju shows up…

Claire ignores her own safety in the face of that much larger threat, and charges at Darth Kaia in a fit of rage/grief over Kaia’s apparent death, and Dean has to grab her and pull her through the portal just as it snaps closed. Cue the parallel to Dean dragging Sam away from Jess’s burning bedroom ceiling in 1.01, and Sam pulling Dean through this exact same sort of portal in 12.23 when he was struggling to run after Cas.

Meanwhile Patience struggles to understand the vision that brought her to Jody’s in the first place– Claire’s “death.” The editing of this scene is spectacular– cuts between Kaia’s body in the Bad Place, Claire in Jody’s arms both in Patience’s vision and in reality, and Patience herself putting all of these pieces together. Death, life, and what she  _believed_  was a death was actually profound grief… and again this has been a theme of s13 through Sam refusing to grieve for Mary and his belief that she was not only alive but that they could save her, Dean’s grief over Cas’s death that he believed was permanent, to the point he’d lost all hope for anything and was ready to die in 13.05 until Death herself told him he still had work to do.

Whatever the truth of what’s happened to Kaia, there is absolutely work to do here, as well.

Dean says “I tried talking to her.” Not “we” but “I.” He’s beginning to use the proper words here. This issue has been going on for a loooong time, where Dean phrases things in terms of “we,” such as in 11.23 during the infamous Beer Run, telling Cas he’s like “our brother,” and always couching his feelings as inclusive of Sam as well. This was nicely lampshaded in 12.20 by Max Banes calling Alicia out on her attempt to do the same thing, and in 13.07 Dean FINALLY told Cas “I’ll go with you,” instead of “we’ll go with you.” The fact that Dean is talking about himself like this regarding anything even in the same arena as emotional issues is just… fantastic all around.

Claire feels responsible for Kaia’s death, after promising to protect her. She feels she failed, and that that was the reason Kaia was killed. Jody doesn’t dismiss any of Claire’s feelings or try to talk her out of them (the way Sam and Dean have done for, like, ever), only offers her unconditional support whenever Claire’s ready to accept it.

Cleaning up after the Canids tore up the house, Patience has a lil moment of shock over the fact she killed a monster. Donna smiles knowingly and Alex chuckles and says, “Welcome to the family.” Like Claire said in the cold open, “I kill monsters, that’s who the hell I am.” Well, that’s what this whole family is. They save people and they kill monsters.

Darth Kaia has opened a rift to our world, in the middle of a park reminiscent to the place where Mary turned up in 12.01… opening about a million other mysteries along with that rift.

I know I didn’t cover all the parallels. That probably wouldn’t be possible considering how many times the show has looped back around on itself thematically and narratively, but I think I hit all the big ones here. Now how the hell do I even begin tagging this?

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ヽ(°□° )ノ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

[spn 13.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.10) [wayward sisters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wayward-sisters) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [dreamhunter](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dreamhunter) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [the fisher king](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-fisher-king) [kaia nieves](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kaia-nieves) [claire novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/claire-novak) [patience turner](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/patience-turner) [alex (mills)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/alex-%28mills%29) [jody mills](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jody-mills) [i fudging love sheriff donna](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-fudging-love-sheriff-donna) [the tropes are hungry](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-tropes-are-hungry) [i'll probably come up with some more tags for this eventually >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ll-probably-come-up-with-some-more-tags-for-this-eventually-%3E.%3E) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [alternate universes in canon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/alternate-universes-in-canon)[‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ヽ(°□° )ノ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%E2%80%BF%EF%B8%B5%E2%80%BF%EF%B8%B5%E2%80%BF%EF%B8%B5%E2%80%BF%E3%83%BD%28%C2%B0%E2%96%A1%C2%B0-%29%E3%83%8E%EF%B8%B5%E2%80%BF%EF%B8%B5%E2%80%BF%EF%B8%B5%E2%80%BF%EF%B8%B5) [there that covers my feelings on trying to tag this :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there-that-covers-my-feelings-on-trying-to-tag-this-%3AP)

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

[Jun 27, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/122596489640/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big)

26 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey, I was just curious, Cas said that he was big as the Chrysler Building, but s9 Gadreel was a tiny ball of light compared to that when he was going in and out of Sam? So are angels curled up really tight on Earth or something? Sorry for caffeine high rambling about the sizes of angel xp**

Ooh, yes! This also reminds me of [this discussion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/116382722325/musings-on-the-season-finale-death-lucifer-and) with [dustydreamsanddirtyscars](http://tmblr.co/m4J6yls3rYvF2fUHLnY_jJQ) that turned into musing on the nature of angel grace back in April (back in the Good Old Days when there was still speculation that Cas’s grace would be a part of the cure for the MoC. Aah, good times, good times). And hey! I actually found the post again AND linked to it. I feel so organized and productive now. :D

A large part of that conversation was about how grace could cure the mark, but I am a sucker for theoretical metaphysical analyses of the mechanics of the supernatural creatures on fictional television shows, and I’ve spent waaaay too much time thinking about what an angel is. This was my impression, which may or may not be relevant to whether an angel is made up of other stuff we can’t see, or if they’re just wadded up really small to squish themselves into a vessel. Hey, maybe Earth’s gravity works like an angelic car crusher and compresses their wavelengths. Or the atmosphere concentrates them down and they don’t go back to their full size until you mix them with water, or something. Whatever! It’s fun to think about, but I’m FINALLY getting to the point… *looks around for point* *finds open tab containing point*

> [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/122588077743/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big):
>
>> Omg “Are angels curled up really tight on Earth” :D New favourite phrase of the month.
>> 
>> I’ve wondered about that too, and I always figured the light (from the early seasons when showing angel possession on screen) and, like… angel smoke? or however you want to describe it compared to demon smoke… from season 9 onwards were one thing - kind of just a demonstration of their power in the same way Cas just glows when he’s peacocking and the blue eyes are that shining through, but he’s demonstrating the power more than the true form (hence all the flickering when his grace was fading) so we don’t see the shadows of more than wings - no extra heads or mile-high shadow or anything. I think the true forms are the eyeball-melting bit (like, we saw even in the early seasons, Cas hop from Claire to Jimmy on screen in polite company without burning any eyes out and was just represented as a transfer of light from one to the other, but Pamela tried sneaking a direct look at something entirely different) and so the true form would exist in a separate way from that. Possibly on a different dimension or something. Or only metaphorically.
> 
> I have seen two different ways grace is introduced to and removed from vessels. The first way is when angels get consent and enter the vessel through the mouth, taking over the vessel completely (personality, memory, etc.) They can also leave vessels this way, either voluntarily or because the host evicts them (such as we saw with Sam evicting Gadreel, once he was made aware that the angel was inside him in the first place).
> 
> In those circumstances, the grace seems to encompass the entirety of the angel. But in the alternate circumstances, such as when Metatron first stole Cas’s grace, and then Cas has now gone on to steal Metatron’s, it’s through a slice in the throat. The grace in that case seems to be little more than a power source, distinct from the rest of the angel’s being/memory/personality. I think this is why Cas doesn’t suddenly become Theo when he steals his grace to “angel up” again. It’s more like just the power portion of the grace is extracted in that case, and not the entirety of the angel’s being. (from the much longer discussion linked above)

In both of those cases, we get the same visual representation of the grace, the floaty blue cloud of light, even though it seems the clouds contain distinctly different elements (personality vs. power). Since power is the constant– in both types of grace transfer “mojo” is conveyed, while only one type gives the ‘possession by a being with a personality of its own” element– I’m choosing to believe that the glowy blue cloud is representational of the mojo, not of the angel.

I tried to think of a human body-related metaphor for this, but failed, because angels are just so not human (at least physically). But I got a car metaphor for you! Dean would be proud:

I think an angel could be visualized as a car with a full tank of gas.The gas takes up a much smaller volume of space than the whole car (maybe archangels are buses, or semis. huh. okay moving on)… But the only part of an angel that we can see with human eyeballs is the gas, sloshing around in a little invisible floating cube as the angel rumbles down the street in traffic… sorry I’m still not caught up on sleep. The car is still there, we just can’t interpret it with human eyeballs (hence the burning-out of said eyeballs when trying to see the whole angel).

Dean specifically has laid his eyeballs directly on the blue glowy stuff (I’m thinking specifically of when he stabbed Zachariah in the face and didn’t blink while watching him die, but there have been numerous other occasions where people watched angel grace float around without ill effect). (OH, in 9.09 Holy Terror, there was a lot of grace flying around this way and no burned out eyeballs. Remember the church group at the campfire? And the girl who only exploded when she tried to contain the grace inside her body? She’d been fine before that, just as Buddy Boyle was fine after watching it– or at least his eyeballs were undamaged. He probably wasn’t very okay mentally, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So yeah, point is I think the blob of light is specifically the mojo, not the whole angel. That was an awful lot of words to basically say “Yes, I have no argument with the above commentary, but I like to talk too much to leave it at that.”

s[pn meta-ish attached to much better meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish-attached-to-much-better-meta) [or at least attached to much more concise meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-at-least-attached-to-much-more-concise-meta) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [castiel angelfish of the lord](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-angelfish-of-the-lord) [just throwing that tag in there for reference purposes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-throwing-that-tag-in-there-for-reference-purposes) [i really do spend way too much time thinking about this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-really-do-spend-way-too-much-time-thinking-about-this)


	7. Chapter 7

[Nov 5, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/132608296620/suricattus-yeah-no-mirrors-at-all-in-this)

3,461 notes

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/0edf2ac75ebcc911821b2c077381b2d9/tumblr_nxboinAl1M1r83v1po2_500.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/e96720cca2141ea8dccf2b35d8dbff65/tumblr_nxboinAl1M1r83v1po3_500.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/14783c58032c7c6e59b35820489b2805/tumblr_nxboinAl1M1r83v1po4_500.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/0dc0aaa6cb94c841c96c47b3768d697d/tumblr_nxboinAl1M1r83v1po1_500.gif)   


[suricattus](http://suricattus.tumblr.com/post/132605082474):

> Yeah, no mirrors at ALL in this episode.  Nope.  None.
> 
> Also, and I don’t know if this is important or not but I think it might be: the idea that different people react differently to Amara’s all-you-can-suck buffet is more akin to what we’ve seen of werewolves and vampires (choosing to not hurt someone/choosing to prey on animals rather than people) than it is anything of Heaven/Hell (where people who’re possessed lose their ability to choose).
> 
> Choice.  Hrm.

Yes! And I think the recurring “soul-eating” plotline is trying to show us exactly that.

First off, the demon nanny that Amara ate in 11.03 dropped to the ground dead from having her demon-smoked soul sucked out since the body’s original occupant was already dead and gone. It was a distinct difference to what happened when a living human’s soul is sucked out. They’re still able to walk and talk and think, and recall who they were before losing their souls. (At one point I remember [talking ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/127874258860/winjennster-tagging-some-of-my-fave-meta-people)about [this ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/122596489640/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big)(also [here ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/118703942205/elizabethrobertajones-iwatchthepie), with the warning that there are even more links in those posts and it’s kind of a rabbit hole) regarding angel grace/angel vessels, and how much of their “personality” was tied to their grace and remained behind in their vessels when, for example, Metatron cut Cas’s grace out (and then when Cas did the same to Metatron) versus an angel leaving its host voluntarily like Hannah did.

I think there have been a lot of hints that souls function in much the same way an angel’s grace does in that respect. Len’s life experiences defined how he reacted when his soul was removed. The police detective at the beginning of the episode described him as “harmless” and “a teddy bear.” It turned out to be an accurate assessment, for the most part. He really was a nice guy, underneath it all. Even without his emotions and an innate sense of “morality” holding him back, he was self-aware enough to know the difference between right and wrong, and even understood that he  _should_  feel upset about having killed a person, even though he  _didn’t_. He volunteered to turn himself in, not because he was remorseful or ashamed, but because he logically knew it was the right thing to do.

But Len had lived a rather satisfying (to him, anyway) and uneventful life, unlike Sydney. She’d been dumped by her boyfriend who’d immediately struck up a relationship with another girl. She’d seen one of the kids she cared for being mistreated by his parents, and was possibly mistreated in the same ways by her own parents. It made her justifiably angry. Len’s primary focus in his life had been his love of the Lizzie Borden lore. He’d even achieved mild celebrity status over it, had a community of people (his online chat group) who shared his interests, and focused on the positive stuff in his life (if you can call obsessing over a 120-year-old murder case “positive.”) But it worked for him as an outlet for his time and energy. Sydney had no such outlet.

Without her soul, Sydney had nothing to fall back on. All she had were a sea of hurt feelings toward people who’d wronged her and protective feelings toward the boy in her care. Len could continue directing his attention to the things he knew to be “him,” while Sydney finally felt empowered to take care of these wrongs she’d always just accepted as things she couldn’t really change.

Gee this got long quickly… (I was going to compare MoC/Demon Dean with Soulless Sam here, but I’ve already done that elsewhere.) I do think all of this is going to become vitally important, though, so I’ll just keep doing my SUPERFAN thing and flailing about it. Len would be proud of me. :D

[spn 11.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.05) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [monsterrrrrrrrsss](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/monsterrrrrrrrsss)

 

[Jan 22, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/137857586745/im-curious-if-you-have-any-theories-on-what)

64 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm curious if you have any theories on what lucifer wants.**

[xylodemon](http://xylodemon.tumblr.com/post/137855813854/im-curious-if-you-have-any-theories-on-what):

> kinda/sorta:
> 
> **big picture:**  I think he can defeat Amara (or at least, he  _thinks_  he can), and from that point would probably embark on some new world order/hell on earth shtick. 
> 
> **small picture:**  This is way less clear. The Dean + (Lucifer) Cas “this could be a good thing” clip from the 11x11 promo* takes place at the bunker, so I’m guessing Lucifer spends part of that episode playing mole. Which initially didn’t make any sense to me. The Winchesters have no usable intel on Amara. And Lucifer knows that: Sam wouldn’t have gone into to hell to talk to him in the first place if they weren’t literally desperate. 
> 
> But. When I was writing my 11x10 coda I started thinking about vessels. It’s been ages since I watched S4, but iirc, Cas never says anything wrt Jimmy and bloodlines; I think he just jumped into Jimmy because he was willing and conveniently located. Same with the fallen angels in S9. They seemed to be hopping into anyone who would say ‘yes.’ I think it’s just archangels that need specific vessels, since they’re considerably more powerful. 
> 
> Cas had vessel meltdown issues during his Godstiel stint. The same kind of vessel meltdown issues Lucifer had when he was in Nick. So, I’m thinking Lucifer can’t stay in Cas forever. He’s probably going to make another bid to hitch a ride in Sam. Like, “blah blah, if you cared about your angel friend at all, you’d say ‘yes’ before he explodes.”
> 
> That’s the only thing I can think of wrt why Lucifer would pretend to be Cas in 11x11. Although, whatever his reasons, he’s already failboating it up. Yeah, I get he had “business” with Rowena and Crowley, but Cas would’ve taken the ride Dean offered. He also didn’t show any concern for Dean and Sam’s injuries; Cas would’ve offered to heal them. I’m figuring the jig will be up pretty quickly.
> 
> .
> 
> *I was just telling [@clusterjam](http://tmblr.co/m2HMaC50J0l2B_H68HKXZQA) I’m actually super excited for this scene: I watched that promo about fifty times, and it feels like something super important was cut either right before or right after “Cas” puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

 

Re: Vessels: It occurred to me that the clip (and I don’t know what episode it’s from, but it was in one of the promos) with Sam holding a gun on what appears to be Cas, could be the endgame of Lucifer’s “Get Into My True Vessel” attempt, and Sam realizing that wait, no, that’s LUCIFER IN CAS! moment, possibly when Sam believes that Lucifer is trying to get him to say yes again.

Also, back in s4, Cas did specify that Claire could be a suitable vessel for him because “It’s in her blood, as it was in yours.” But whatever makes someone a suitable angel vessel could run through lots of families, and it’s not specified that angels needed a specific family’s bloodline, aside from the archangels. That’s reinforced during s9 when angels were willing to try out practically any willing vessel with varying degrees of success.

Hael seemed to imply that some vessels were stronger than others, but in wanting Cas’s body as her own, she didn’t seem to think she’d have any problems using it. I’ve believed that what makes someone more or less able to tolerate a “regular” angel possession was the amount of that unspecified factor floating around in their blood that Cas referred to back in 4.20.

So we know Jimmy was a particularly strong vessel for regular angel occupation, but yeah, I can’t imagine Lucifer would find it suitable as a permanent vessel, just as Nick eventually failed him.

[spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [lucifer (the one on spn-- not my kid)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn---not-my-kid%29) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F)

 

[Jan 23, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/137903280545/why-couldnt-be-have-kept-ambriel-i-dont-get-it)

12 notes

**Anonymous asked: why couldn't be have kept Ambriel :( i dont get it , imo we need more reoccuring angels it's boring that Cas only ever interacts with these constantly new random angels. also why didnt ambriel turn human? amara took her grace that turned Metatron and Cas human why not her? or did amara do something else?**

[snowlantern](http://snowlantern.tumblr.com/post/137882977677/why-couldnt-be-have-kept-ambriel-i-dont-get-it):

> Yeah. Ambriel was so cute, everybody was insta-charmed, she should have stuck around. Her interactions with Castiel were gold, I wanted to see more. Also btw they never should have killed Hannah, that was so unnecessary.
> 
> My headcanon is that an angel dies when you take its grace unless you do it in a very precise way, by cutting the throat and gathering up the grace seeping out. That’s how it was done to Cas, to the angel Cas stole grace from, to Adina who Crowley stole grace from for Cas (right?), and to Metatron. As a matter of fact I don’t think Adina and the other angel did survive? So it may be a pretty dicy procedure with a 50/50 chance of survival. Furthermore I have the headcanon that until Metatron did that to Cas, no one except Metatron knew that it was possible. (Crowley found out about it because Cas did it to an angel on Earth and Crowley has spies everywhere and finds out everything.)
> 
> But Amara though, her victims usually survive. They become soulless, but they live. That’s humans though, Ambriel was the first angel she ate. The fact that Ambriel died actually fits well with my headcanon (yet another one!) that an angel’s grace is made of the same “fabric” as a human soul, so that when the grace is taken but the angel survives, it’s because there’s a small core sliver of grace left, and that sliver functions as the soul. Hey, maybe that’s why not all angels survive a grace-ectomy – they die if you happen to remove ALL of the grace and fail to leave that critical sliver. So Amara sucked out all of Ambriel’s grace, including the last sliver that could otherwise have been her soul. That would mean that an angel can never become soulless in the way that Sam was. They just die instead.
> 
> Highly metaphysical. It makes sense to me, but it’s hard to explain. But anyway, here, have a wordsalad. :)

 

I believe Theo (the first angel Cas stole grace from) survived the grace removal, until Cas stabbed him with the angel blade. He wasn’t leaving survivors to tell tales.

I have no idea why Crowley killed Adina, but after taking her grace from the angel-blade slice to her neck, he also stabbed her through the heart.

If anyone is REALLY interested in angel grace and has an afternoon to kill, I’ve written some stuff (and others have too). [THIS ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/132608296620/suricattus-yeah-no-mirrors-at-all-in-this)is a link to one post on the subject, that has links to several other discussions on the subject, all of which have YET MORE LINKS to discussions on the subject. Dive into this at your own risk. Here’s [another](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/122596489640/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big), and [another more concise analysis of what angel grace is,](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/116382722325/musings-on-the-season-finale-death-lucifer-and)  

The angels may have survive their grace-ectomies simply because Cas did. He was alive, with his personality essentially intact. The way Amara removes grace, the same way she removes souls, through the mouth, is more reminiscent of angels leaving their vessels completely. We don’t know what the state of Ambriel’s vessel was before Amara consumed her grace. Perhaps she was an “empty vessel” and had no resident human personality (soul or not, since Amara would’ve theoretically sucked the human soul from that vessel at the same time, I guess?).

Basically I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff. :D

[spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [i really do spend way too much time thinking about this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-really-do-spend-way-too-much-time-thinking-about-this)


	8. Chapter 8

#  [The one-hit wonder Hands of God](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/139981600665/the-one-hit-wonder-hands-of-god)

[Feb 25, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/139981600665/the-one-hit-wonder-hands-of-god)

52 notes

It occurs to me that we’ve now had TWO separate objects given the “Hand of God” label, as being objects that retained a small fragment of God’s power because they’d been wielded by God at some distant point in the past. They seem to be pretty powerful, but with a really short usefulness lifespan. Once activated, they’ve pretty much just gone one good shot of juice before they’re spent.

Strangely enough, this really reminds me of Sam and Cas’s whole storyline from 9.11 First Born, where Cas is little-by-little healing Sam of the last of the damage from the Hell Trials (rather than all at once because he feels that could be dangerous for Sam to channel that much energy at once, or possibly because Cas himself can’t muster that much energy at once in his weakened state with stolen grace). Cas sensed a remaining fragment of Gadreel’s grace in Sam, which was slowly being burned away as Cas healed Sam. Whether it was dissipating because Cas was healing Sam, or if the healings themselves were “activating” those bits of grace and using their power to boost Cas’s healings, it still works out the same. When Cas pushed the final healing treatment and used up the remaining grace inside of Sam, the power was effectively used up.

There may be other Hand of God relics on Earth, but once their power is spent, it’s likely gone for good. Sort of the same way that Cas had to ration out his stolen grace, using it in relatively small ways because it was a finite resource, because he wasn’t hooked up to the larger original source of that grace, the same way the Hand of God weapons are no longer connected with God directly.

Cas’s stolen grace was referred to as “batteries” on several occasions, and that’s how I’m viewing the Hand of God weapons, as little batteries filled with God’s power. Once they’re spent, they’re done. But we’ve seen them twice in two episodes now, and therefore I can’t help but wonder how many more little god batteries are out there waiting to be found, and also wonder if there might be a god battery recharger somewhere out there, too.

  

 

[spn 11.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.15) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [the hand of god](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-hand-of-god) [spn 9.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.11) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)


	9. Chapter 9

[Mar 18, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/141256624425/cas-vessel-deteriorating-isnt-indicative-of)

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: Cas' vessel deteriorating isn't indicative of burgeoning humanity. It's a physical body, Jimmy's body isn't his true form, its meat holding an angel and an archangel. It was going to eventually begin to burn out, much like when Cas had the souls of the monsters from Purgatory and the Leviathans.**

[neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/141249466623/cas-vessel-deteriorating-isnt-indicative-of):

> [littlehollyleaf](http://littlehollyleaf.tumblr.com/post/141248353882/cas-vessel-deteriorating-isnt-indicative-of):
>
>> Well that’s not really my reading it’s dustydreamsanddirtyscars’, so you’ll have to take it up with her. 
>> 
>> The idea wasn’t that it was LITERALLY indicating Cas was LITERALLY/PHYSICALLY becoming human though, just kinda metaphorically/symbolically - because the fact that Cas was able to give consent for Luci to possess him/his vessel (ie. as opposed to JIMMY having to consent) indicates that Jimmy’s body has somewhat become CAS’ BODY now, it is arguably more intimately connected to Cas than it is to Jimmy at this point. So Jen has been (nicely imo) interpreting the whole Casifer possession as highlighting how human Cas is constantly becoming, because it puts Cas into the position of a human vessel - having his own physical form, surrendering it, losing control of it and such. So any subsequent deterioration will add into that, because it will be AS IF it is CAS or at least A PART OF CAS (if we take his body as being a literal part of him now) that is burning out.
>> 
>> …however, I personally would prefer Cas’ body NOT to deteriorate due to Lucifer’s grace
>> 
>> a) since I think that would make Luci’s attempt to kill Sam (his true vessel, who can hold him without deterioration) kinda dumb. Because I  _assume_  that Luci would have realised Cas was going to deteriorate (or had even begun to deteriorate) as soon as he possessed him, so it surely would have been in his better interests to make sure he had a durable vessel still living for when Cas became uninhabitable… (unless Luci doesn’t plan to stay on Earth in the future… hmmm… that could work, perhaps he plans to return to Heaven after killing Amara, where he won’t need a vessel…?)
>> 
>> b) I like the idea that when Cas was resurrected at the end of S05 his vessel/body was ‘upgraded’ - he does comment to Dean that he’s come back ‘new and improved’, so I think it makes sense that his vessel/body was made strong enough to host archangels (indeed it was WIDELY ASSUMED at the time that Cas had been resurrected AS AN ARCHANGEL HIMSELF, oh gosh the number of fics that just took that as fact :p)
>> 
>> Although I DO like the angsty idea of Cas being slowly killed via Luci possession (if we assume the rest of Cas - ie. grace etc. - is burning up along with his vessel/body), so I could roll with it!
>> 
>> but, eh, we’ll see!
> 
> “It was going to eventually begin to burn out, much like when Cas had the souls of the monsters from Purgatory and the Leviathans.”
> 
> This is literally speculation, being stated as fact (against a show that just makes up its “new” canon to suit at this point lbr, like demons/angels possessing people already possessed by angels). There’s nothing in canon to indicate Cas’s permavessel (specially made by God THRICE and housing only Cas, as it were) is gonna “burn out” with Lucifer’s extra power. We have no idea which is greater - all the souls of Purgatory, or Lucifer’s grace. Or if those two things are even close to equal, which I suspect they are not, simply because Cas was gonna use Purgatory soul power to defeat Raphael, another archangel. This would mean Purgatory was greater, considering “archangel” is mostly a power level status (more than angel overlords, schemers ), and all the archangels have been presented as power equals as the narrative presents the angelic classification.
> 
> Holly makes a good point of how it’d otherwise be foolish of Lucifer to attempt to kill Sam, if he’d eventually need/want more permanent housing (though I’d argue Lucifer at this point knows Sam would never say “yes” to him, under any circumstance, so keeping Sam around would be an unnecessary “safety net” move). The whole “return to Heaven so he can ditch Cas’s vessel” sounds more plausible than anything rn (this would explain his want/need to return to Heaven in 11x18), considering how much he hates humanity in general, and can just grab another “Nick level” vessel if he ever needed to roam Earth temporarily again (or for that matter he could just wear humans like the suit of the year). I can’t really see him preferring human containment if he can help it.
> 
> I think when it comes down to it, Lucifer would still want to protect Heaven against the growing threat of Amara, either to prevent her from eating Heaven’s soul reserves and becoming stronger (to then destroy it), or because to the above point he simply still considers it home and wouldn’t want to see it destroyed (because the alternative means living on Earth or in Hell).
> 
> Besides these points of debate, many have speculated Cas’s body is simply battle damaged, since Misha looks fine on the other side of his face. The injured side *looks* like grace radiation damage, but there’s cuts too, so it could simply be holy fire and fight damage. Honestly, there’s no reason for the show to threaten us with Cas vessel radiation damage when Lucifer possessing Cas is threatening enough. That’s not to say they WON’T (because SPN isn’t good at detail planning, just broad strokes). It’s just an unnecessary and time consuming narrative move against a usually crammed back end of the season narrative. *shrugs*

I even made a post comparing Misha’s injuries to the vessel damage Lucifer sustained in Nick’s body, but that was based off the ¾ profile picture Misha posted. Once I saw the video with the other side of his face looking relatively normal, I doubted it myself.

Castiel’s vessel had trouble sustaining the Leviathans and all of Purgatory’s power, but that was also several resurrections ago. The Leviathans also weren’t trying to protect Cas’s body. They didn’t intend to use it long-term. They wanted to be released into the world. Not that I think Lucifer intends to use Cas as a vessel permanently, either, but just like Michael assured Dean that he had no intention of leaving him as an essentially empty husk the way Raphael did with his vessel, I imagine Lucifer has a more vested interest in keeping Cas’s vessel sound until he doesn’t need it anymore. Michael’s conversation back in 5.13 with Dean seemed to imply that he had some control over that, with the implication that Raphael chose not to exercise that control with his own vessel, not caring that his abandoned vessel would be essentially catatonic.

But as pointed out above, this is an entirely new situation in canon. Hael wanted Cas to say yes to her back in 9.01 to take advantage of his strong vessel, but he was purely human at the time. He didn’t have his own grace. Now that both Cas and Lucifer’s grace are in the same vessel, we know that Cas is the rightful owner of the vessel, enough to consent to Lucifer.

It makes me wonder what can injure an archangel in that fashion, though. Short of holy fire (which only inconvenienced Michael/Adam for a few minutes in 5.22, and left no permanent marks on Adam’s vessel) and the grace radiation burns, there’s nothing in canon that could.

One wackadoo theory I came up with in the middle of my Detective Mittens binge last night (and okay confession time I might’ve been a wee bit snockered when I came up with it) was that it was Cas trying to fight Lucifer from within, especially after Misha joked in the video about his complexion. Yeah, haha Luci, that’ll teach you for being Satan, Imma give you the worst case of acne EVER and then nobody will like you and you’ll run crying back to the cage. (see above disclaimer about Mittens having been a tad tipsy at the time).

Whatever the case, two angels in a single vessel hasn’t happened before in canon, so we don’t really have a precedent for this to refer back to for clues. We only know that Lucifer doesn’t really care for humanity in general, with Heaven in chaos and leaderless and essentially in panic mode, he might see his opportunity for redemption. All he ever wanted was to go back to how things were before God created man and commanded the angels to love his new creation. So apocalypse or not, he probably still wants that; to be accepted back into heaven. As the only archangel alive and at liberty, and with Heaven still mostly locked away because of Metatron’s angel fall spell, AND with all the other angels wingless and only able to access Heaven through a single portal, he might just be trying to seize that opportunity.

Knowing Cas already feels like an expendable pawn, I wonder if he wouldn’t be making some kind of last-ditch self-sacrificing play to stymie Lucifer’s machinations toward Heaven, especially now that he knows that Lucifer’s claims about being able to defeat Amara/The Darkness were at best half truths.

Basically my conclusion is that we need more information, which is not a particularly useful conclusion. Sorry. :P

[spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F)[lucifer (the one on spn-- not my kid)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn---not-my-kid%29) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [WE NEED MORE CANON *slams fist on table*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/WE-NEED-MORE-CANON-%2Aslams-fist-on-table%2A) [i'm just a little bit appalled that said canon will be coming from buckleming](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-just-a-little-bit-appalled-that-said-canon-will-be-coming-from-buckleming) [because we have a 50/50 chance of ending up with some headscratching WTFery](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-we-have-a-50%2F50-chance-of-ending-up-with-some-headscratching-WTFery) [and the other 50% is likely to be groan-inducing so there you go](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-the-other-50%25-is-likely-to-be-groan-inducing-so-there-you-go)

 

#  [Kitchen Nightmares (or Hell’s Kitchen, your choice)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142641060305/kitchen-nightmares-or-hells-kitchen-your)

[Apr 11, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142641060305/kitchen-nightmares-or-hells-kitchen-your)

21 notes

Welcome to another episode of Speculation Time with Mittens! (sorry, since Cas is trapped in television nightmare hell, I figured the best way to go about this was in television show format. Hey, it worked for Gabriel, once… and I also might watch too much Gordon Ramsay…)

In last week’s episode we caught up with our intrepid hero, trapped in a grim simulation of a place that had once brought him happiness, numb to the outside world because Lucifer has completely taken over his vessel. Whether by choice or by force, Cas has been sequestered away in that one tiny corner of his own mind.

We know that Cas had been aware of his surroundings in the real world to some extent as recently as 11.14. He managed to override Lucifer’s control long enough to stop him from killing Sam. The main question that raised for me was just how aware Cas had been up to that point. He seemed pretty lucid, and knew what Dean’s situation was without Sam having to tell him. It seems to imply that up to that point, he’d been at least mostly aware of what Lucifer was using his vessel for, and at least paying attention to the world around him. That leads directly into the logical second question raised here, which I’ve talked about already in several other posts, and involves the nature of angel grace, and the ~woowoo~ mystical “laws” that govern it.

We know that angels need consent to possess their vessels, and Lucifer received consent (however dubiously acquired) from Cas. In 11.14, Sam gave consent to use his soul in a supposedly last-ditch effort to rescue Dean from that sub. Lucifer-in-Castiel began the process of drawing off Sam’s soul power, but Sam never consented for  _Lucifer_ to access that power. He’d explicitly consented for Castiel to access it. Whatever force of the universe governs these sorts of transactions, I like to believe it took Sam at his word. His soul-juice bypassed Lucifer entirely and was routed directly into Castiel’s grace, giving him the boost he needed to overpower Lucifer long enough to save Sam.

At that point, I believe Lucifer was fed up with Cas interfering in his fun, and that’s when Cas got sent to the kitchen for time out. Much the same way that Gadreel, after having lived inside of Sam for months, finally resorted to locking Sam away within a believable dream inside his own mind in order to take over Sam’s vessel full-time, I believe that’s now what Lucifer has done with Cas. Considering how beaten down and depressed Cas had been feeling before he’d said yes to Lucifer in the first place, it wouldn’t have taken much for Lucifer to induce that same feeling in him again. It would serve Lucifer’s purposes nicely, because not only would Cas be locked up and out of his way, he’d be so isolated and withdrawn that he’d have no desire to fight back no matter what Lucifer may do with his vessel. Even deploying a Hand of God weapon may not have been enough of a jolt to his vessel to wake Cas up in there. But then again…

I have spent WAAAAY too much time thinking about the nature of angel grace and souls in the SPN universe. ([see](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on%20the%20nature%20of%20angel%20grace) [these](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels%20and%20meatsuits) [tags](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels%20and%20souls) [if you](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel%20and%20his%20fading%20grace) feel like diving down the rabbit hole with me) But it occurs to me that what we saw in 11.14 might be a key to understanding what’s going on in 11.18, in that last scene where Amara’s trying her hand at a Lucifer Flambe. Admittedly, it’s a tricky dish to prepare your first time in the kitchen, but it gives me hope that, even though Lucifer is clearly suffering whatever sort of force-choke Amara’s giving his grace, I had to stop and wonder what, if anything,  _Cas_ is feeling as this is happening inside his own vessel.

And now a word from our sponsor.

*insert ad for kitchen remodeling contractor* *insert ad for the Big Screen Store* *insert ad for Jiffy Pop*

And now back to our show.

Meanwhile, back in the bunker… the one inside Cas’s mind… I expect Cas’s reception is on the fritz. The internal loop of random pop culture references, provided by Metatron’s download and playing out on a crappy 13” tv with lousy reception, is breaking up as the cone of silence Lucifer had trapped Cas in falters under the pressure of Amara’s attack. Random snippets of external frequencies begin to slip through in flickers and pops, breaking up the static and shining a light on him for the first time in weeks.

He realizes he  _had_ seen Dean. Dean had trapped him in a circle of holy fire and shoved Lucifer aside long enough to try and tell him something… something important. He knows it must’ve been important. Dean had sent Crowley.  _Crowley_ had come into his imaginary kitchen and tried to snap him out of his stupor, but the static had been too strong. The numbness of his own depression had been crushing even before Lucifer squashed the last bit of hope from him and sealed him up in the bunker. What a good metaphor, he thinks absently as he finally leaves the kitchen and makes a break for the stairs.  _Trapped underground in a dusty old receptacle for a tremendous stockpile of ancient knowledge and weapons_. Well, he’s not gonna sit around any longer now that he knows his own worth. He IS a tremendous stockpile of ancient knowledge and weapons.

He can hear Dean again, a constant undercurrent of  _hang on Cas we’re coming to get you don’t give up you keep fighting in there you can kick that bastard out just hold on Cas_. He occasionally catches a more direct prayer from both Dean and Sam, letting him know that they’re working on kicking Lucifer out. Armed with the knowledge that Lucifer had lied, and that he’d failed to defeat the darkness, Cas charges up the stairs to the bunker’s front door. Without hesitation, he reaches for the knob and flings the door wide… only to be struck by the blinding light and heat of burning angel grace.

He slams the door shut before that power can affect his own grace, and stands with his back pressed to the door, panting and gulping down the overwhelming terror that he might be too late…

Meanwhile, back at the trainyard where Amara’s torturing Lucifer…

She tells Lucifer that she’s going to hurt HIM because HE is God’s favorite (I guess Amara missed the memo on the whole Lucifer-Fell-From-Grace-And-Was-Cast-Into-Hell storyline…), and hurting him, she believes, will finally get God’s attention.

Based on what we already know about how angel grace seems to work, extrapolated out from Sam’s soul-consent getting diverted to Cas because that was the agreement he’d made, Amara’s  _intent_ to harm Lucifer specifically (remember she thinks Castiel is beneath notice, not worth anyone’s time or attention), her Flamethrower of Doom can’t touch Cas. At least, not unless her  _intent_ changes.

So, based on that bit of extrapolative headcanon, I feel pretty comfy assuming that Cas is (aside from major depression and ptsd) currently safe from Amara’s machinations on his vessel. Her attack on Lucifer might inadvertently be the key Cas needs to finally overpower Lucifer and reclaim his vessel for himself.

Tune in again next time for the thrilling continuation… Will God finally reveal himself? Is God finally ready to fess up to his mistakes, or is he still gonna hide out like a little chickenshit and let others try to solve his problems for him? We’ll be ready either way, here on Speculation Time with Mittens.

[spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [wherein mittens gets way too meta about kitchens and maybe loses grip with reality for a second or two there](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-mittens-gets-way-too-meta-about-kitchens-and-maybe-loses-grip-with-reality-for-a-second-or-two-there) [spn crack but not really](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-crack-but-not-really) [i started this out as a meta/spec piece but it kind of turned into fic once or twice](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-started-this-out-as-a-meta%2Fspec-piece-but-it-kind-of-turned-into-fic-once-or-twice)

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

[Apr 17, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142967898990/f-ckyeahfutbol-mittensmorgul)

65 notes

[f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/142964644321):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142954716300):
>
>> [f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/142940572081):
>>
>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/105012449960):
>>>
>>>> I’ve been thinking about Claire’s star and rose tattoo. I’ve seen several posts about the potential astronomical significance of the placement of the stars, as well as the symbolic meanings of stars over the last few seasons. There’s also the rose images we’ve been seeing a significant deal of, especially in relation to Cas, and to various victims this season (i.e., characters that didn’t survive the first five minutes of Supernatural).
>>>> 
>>>> I just read [this meta](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/post/80168235242/the-route-of-flowers-symbolism-and-castiel) by [thevioletcaptain ](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/)about the significance of flower symbolism in relation to Cas since S6. There are links in that post to other meta with further details. Every time flowers, and bees for that matter, pop up on this show, I immediately associate them with Cas.
>>>> 
>>>> What I haven’t seen mentioned is the fact that in Claire’s tattoo, the rose is technically upside down, i.e., it looks right side up to Claire when she’s looking down at her own arms, but when she’s standing naturally with her arms at her sides, the rose would appear to be inverted to everyone else, with the petals hanging toward the ground. Arm tattoos are nearly always inked so that they look “right side up” to the rest of the world.
>>>> 
>>>> This means that Claire had a really dumb tattoo artist to ink the rose right side up from her perspective, or she intentionally wanted the rose hanging toward the ground. Because the makeup department isn’t usually dumb *other than that time they oopsie forgot the handprint* I am left to believe that rose is supposed to look like it’s falling, or being dropped.
>>>> 
>>>> ****
>>>> 
>>>> **rightside up rose in 9.06**
>>>> 
>>>> and then a few minutes later:
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> rose hanging upside down also in 9.06.
>>>> 
>>>> Remember this is also the rose Cas used to cut his hand for blood to paint an angel banishing symbol later in the episode. It went from symbol of hope and affection/romance etc., to a symbol of disappointment, to an improvised weapon in the space of a few scenes. Oh versatile little rose *presents rose with emmy award*.
>>>> 
>>>> Claire’s rose tattoo? points to the ground. I’d love to see a better analysis of what that could mean. It seems like such a small thing, but I’m positive there’s more to it.
>>> 
>>> I wrote a bunch on the esoteric symbolism back when the episode aired, connecting the rose with the constellation of Aquarius… and the less said about that, the better. But I started thinking about the rose and the sword after reading your post, connected especially in the figure of the  _Rosenkavalier_  (the Rose Knight), as well as the figure of Mary, Mother of Christ – we see her heart both pierced with a sword and surrounded by roses, a kind of conglomeration of the symbols.
>>> 
>>> But I figured this bit of information might be relevant to our interests: the word hand in Hebrew,  _yad_ , actually refers not to the appendix beginning from the wrist (the palm+fingers is  _kaph_ ), but to the span from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. In Hebrew (and ergo in the Bible), that is what is understood by and which translates to English the word ‘hand’. The word hand is often paralleled with the word ‘arm’ ( _zero’a_ ), which in turn is from the shoulder to the fingers. So Claire’s tattoo may yet be another Hand of God reference.
>> 
>> Ooh! See, I knew if I reblogged some of my ancient thinky-thoughts someone would be able to connect them to current events. :) I originally posted that in December 2014 when Claire first returned, before she took up the Grigori’s sword, so it’s like we’ve now watched her journey advance. I don’t think her part in the story is done, by virtue of the fact that she’s still using the sword and training as a hunter.
>> 
>> She has also been the only other vessel of Castiel on the show, and with speculation that he may be a Hand of God by virtue of having been resurrected (presumably by God himself) multiple times, I find this interesting.
> 
> It is interesting, and I’ve been expecting her to play a role in the grand scheme of things ever since her re-introduction. She – especially her role as a vessel in the context of us having watched a whole season focused on angelic vessels prior to her arrival – is like a smoking Chekov’s gun. But at the same time, it doesn’t seem like we’re getting to that part of the story yet this season…

Probably not, no. But there is s12 to look forward to, and all the loose ends of heaven-related plots.

[spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [claire novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/claire-novak) [more supernatural flower meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/more-supernatural-flower-meta) [this season's getting handsy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-season%27s-getting-handsy)

 

[May 17, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144494705880/as-i-already-remarked-in-my-comment-to-two-for-the)

6 notes

**[itsmajel](http://itsmajel.tumblr.com/) asked: As I already remarked in my comment to Two For The Price Of One I was wondering: Do you really think if Chuck made Lucifer a new vessel it could end up looking like Cas? I get you needed that for thestory but what about for real? I mean he’s sure practiced in making Cas vessels but isn't that a little cruel? and when Crowley went into Cas mind Lucifer was represented by his old vessel so im guessing that’s more like his preferred form. Sorry if you talked about this before!**

Oh gosh, [Two For The Price Of One](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F6868180&t=MmQwZTk4ZTFiMmZkMjYzODgyYzE3Y2VkNDk1MDkyOGUyMTUxNTFkYyxWTWhHYnllZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F144494705880%2Fas-i-already-remarked-in-my-comment-to-two-for-the&m=1) is like 98% pure crack. I don’t think they’d EVER do anything like that in the show. It was just me being ridiculous, choosing the absolute weirdest thing I could think of to write about.

First of all, I don’t think Chuck would make Luci a new vessel. Unless something incredible happens over the next two episodes, I really don’t see that happening at all.

Second of all, I have no idea why Lucifer chose the “Nick” vessel to appear in the Cage, and then again when Crowley popped into Cas’s head for a visit. Maybe it was just the visage that Sam expected to see in the cage, and the one that Crowley expected to see in Cas’s head, since it was the face they most associated with Lucifer in the past, or if Lucifer chose to appear wearing Nick’s face again because he’d become comfortable with it.

I don’t know if we’ll ever get a rationalization on that, since it seems to touch on the question of what angels look like when they’re not wearing a vessel. That’s why Lucifer couldn’t just leave the cage looking like Nick. Same with Gadreel appearing in Sam’s head when Crowley pulled the same trick he did with Casifer and went in to give a pep talk. Inside Sam’s head, Gadreel still had Tahmoh Penniket’s face (despite Sam never having seen that face himself at that point). So I guess it is the angel’s choice how they appear in “visions” or other manifestations when they’re not in a vessel, and for some reason Luci keeps picking Nick’s face.

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [spn fanfic](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-fanfic) [spn crack](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-crack) [because really this isn't a meta topic this is a 2k crack fic :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-really-this-isn%27t-a-meta-topic-this-is-a-2k-crack-fic-%3AP) [itsmajel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/itsmajel)

 

[May 26, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144958659750/i-missed-a-few-things-about-the-episode-so-im)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: I missed a few things about the episode so I'm possibly mistaken but I'm kinda freaking out here about a scary thought that just occurred to me. Were they actually sealing heaven? If I got that right could that mean that when Cas was zipped away with the angel-banishing sigil he got sent to heaven and stayed locked in it, thus no Cas next season or disappeared for most part of it? I don't know if Misha has a contract for next season and now I'm really worried.**

Okay, hi, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to look over in both my inbox and dash, and I’m planning to do a full rewatch with a huge reaction post with notes later today, but THIS IS ONE THING I CAN ANSWER FOR YOU RIGHT NOW!

MISHA HAS BEEN CONFIRMED FOR S12! They’re doing a photo shoot with J2M2 for new promo photos for s12, so all four of them will be back for s12.

SO I KNOW IT’S HARD, season finale cliffhanger and all, BUT we also have precedent for angels not being sent back to Heaven with the banishing sigil when Heaven’s “locked up.”

In 9.01, when Dean was being attacked in the hospital, he gave himself enough time to draw a banishing sigil by asking the angels, “If Heaven is locked, then where do you go when I do this?” And then he slams his hand on the sigil. My first thought was where Cas ended up in 5.21. On a fishing boat off the coast of Louisiana.

But I was of the mind already that angels aren’t sent to Heaven when they’re banished, anyway. They’re just sent  _away_ , and it’s kinda random where they end up. LIke in 7.21 when Dean banishes Hester and Inias at the hospital (and also Cas, because he’s an angel too), when Cas pops back he tells them he’d reappeared “surrounded by large unhappy dogs,” at a dog track in Perth, Australia.

So, no. I don’t think he’s been booped back to Heaven. He’s probably somewhere on Earth. And if Chuck didn’t restore the angels’ ability to fly before he popped of to wherever with Amara, then I assume there’s gonna be a phone call along the lines of what we had in 11.01.

But Cas thinks Dean’s dead, right? SO Dean will probably try to call Sam, get to answer, and then try Cas. WON’T CAS BE HAPPY THAT DEAN’S ALIVE?! AND SO APPARENTLY IS IS MOMMA?! But then he’ll have to tell Dean about the stranger in the bunker, and they’ll pick some other “safe” place to meet. Because Dean still has NO IDEA where he is. Cas is probably not gonna be able to boop himself to Dean so they can team up to rescue Sam, and AAAAAAAHHHHH! I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS!

WORKING! TOGETHER! INSTEAD! OF! HIDING! STUFF! FROM! EACH! OTHER!

:D

[spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-speculation) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [but yeah we're all good for s12 :)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-yeah-we%27re-all-good-for-s12-%3A%29) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Jun 1, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145287513470/cloudatlascas-here-something-that-i-really-need)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: Cloudatlascas here, something that I REALLY NEED TO KNOW is did Dean pray to Cas during Lucifer's possession? I feel sure WOULD have. Unless he worried Lucifer would hear everything and thus either a) figure out the extent of Dean's feelings and hurt Cas or b) hear any plan to save Cas and thus prevent it. Totally gonna ask Misha about this at AHBL in two days... I feel like the 'Dean can pray to Cas' thing is rather inconvenient to the writers who love pining!Dean and angst!Cas but still...**

Oh yes! Hi! And thank you for asking this! I hope you get your turn at the microphone! YOU ARE DOING THE LORD’S WORK. :D

I think Dean’s probably so used to praying to Cas he does it without really thinking about it at this point. I mean, heck. I think about Mr. Mittens sometimes and I’m like, “Yeah, he’d like this thing,” or “I gotta show him this when he gets home,” or whatever. But if the person you’re thinking that kind of stuff about is an angel, does that count as a kind of prayer?

Even just the, “Cas, man, where are you?” kind of thought might count as a prayer.

I’d been wondering if Lucifer’s possession might have blocked the prayer frequencies to Cas, though. Back when we saw inside Cas’s mind during 11.18, he’d been hanging out in the bunker’s kitchen because it got good reception, but that was only on the little tv he was watching, and he was “watching” a radio show. On the tv. So I think maybe his incoming frequencies were a little scrambled at the time.

Just like Cas(ifer) reaching in to touch Sam’s soul gave Cas the power to overthrow the possession even for a short time, which we theorized may have been because Sam specifically gave permission for CAS to use the power of his soul, and NOT Lucifer, it’s quite possible that prayers directed to a specific angel will only go to that angel. At least, that’s the line of thinking I’ve been operating under. Like dialing the phone to call a specific person doesn’t ring EVERYONE’s phone, just the person you’re calling.

And I know Dean’s wandering in the woods there trying to find a phone signal to call Sam first, probably, but he should logically presume that Cas is with Sam, and hey, Cas doesn’t need a phone to get a message…

I have a feeling that we’re going to see a “Dean prays to Cas” scene very soon into s12. Probably once he gets over the shock of stumbling into his mother out in the woods. :D

I definitely believe that we didn’t see him praying (or Cas hearing him pray) at the end of 11.23 because CLIFFHANGER TENSION!!!!! They think Dean’s dead! OMG! Dean doesn’t know about Cas getting banished by some crazy lady at the bunker who pulled a gun on Sam!!!!! OH NOES!

So yeah.

But I DEFINITELY WANT TO KNOW JENSEN’S THEORIES ON THE MATTER!

AND ALSO WHY HE WAS TRYING TO GET CELL PHONE SERVICE WHEN HE COULD MAKE A SOUL PHONE CALL INSTEAD (gosh that was one of my favorite lines in 6.15).

Tell him I said he should just throw out a HEY CAS! TELL SAM I’M NOT DEAD! BECAUSE I’M NOT DEAD! THOUGHT YOU GUYS MIGHT LIKE TO BE AWARE OF THAT FACT.

[spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Jun 15, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145974099815/yeah-i-also-think-a-flashback-or-so-is-the-only)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: yeah i also think a flashback or so is the only thing that makes sense but why did they specifically had cas state amara ripped him from his body and even say he doesnt know where he is. if lucifer is dead why didnt cas just say "lucifer is gone. amara killed him"? i actually dont really want the character back tbh, but couldnt markp justhave been told he returns for s12 just like the toni actress knows she was for s11 and s12 even tho it hasnt been written yet**

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the writers have been back to work for nearly a month now, so they’ve probably got a pretty good idea where s12 is going by now, but the actors who need to be hired to play all the roles in those scripts have to be confirmed as available for the dates that script will be filmed long before the final draft of the script is approved, you know? Pointless to even bother writing a part for an actor who isn’t available to film the episode.

Based on Cas’s awareness level through much of the second half of s11, I’m going to go ahead and suggest that when Lucifer was “in charge,” Cas had a fairly limited level of interaction with Lucifer (possibly changing only after he was rescued from Amara in 11.21, and Lucifer and Cas both were on Team We Happy Few in 11.22).

From what we saw of Lucifer being ripped from Cas’s body, it certainly didn’t look like a pleasant experience for him. It’s not something we’ve ever seen happen to an angel before. Usually when an angel leaves someone’s body on this show it happens in one of several established ways:

  * stabbed with angel blade (with possible attendant burns left behind)
  * exit through mouth after being ejected or choosing to leave a vessel
  * that time Michael basically incinerated Anna in 5.13
  * exploding of the vessel (which has happened to Cas way too many times, but also to other angels, such as poor Jophiel in 11.18
  * the [three ways Amara smited the angels in 11.09](http://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/136154256767/yourfavoritedirector-amara-angel) (burning up one’s grace with The Force or whatever, forcing one to stab himself with his angel blade, and just poofing the last one away in a cloud of dust/darkness
  * And even though it didn’t automatically lead to death, there was also the forcible removal of grace we first saw Metatron do to Cas in 8.23, and was subsequently used against several other angels including Metatron himself



What I’m getting at is that we’ve never seen that particular thing happen to any other angel on the show, so we don’t really know for sure what’s become of Lucifer. If forced to make a guess, [I’d say Amara did kill him](http://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/144958922326/amal-albuloshia-whyyyyyyyyyyy). I mean, to me it didn’t look like he got poofed off to a complimentary spa day, you know? It looked like he was expelled from Cas and turned to dust.

But knowing SPN, they left it deliberately vague so if they ever wanted to, they could pull Lucifer out of their pocket and set him back on the game board whenever they wanted to. They believably brought Gabriel back in 9.18 despite having been quite obviously killed dead (with the incinerated wings and everything!) and we’re all STILL questioning whether or not Gabe is actually alive out there somewhere. Because they deliberately want us to be unsure.

So nothing is guaranteed 100% about being really and truly for sure dead-dead on this show.

But all that being said, I do think we could legitimately see Mark P. back playing Lucifer in s12, but really only (as far as what we understand the plot for s12 to be about so far) as either flashbacks or possibly memories that Cas is dealing with as he begins to recover from his possession/severe depression and starts finding answers to the big questions he’s been asked for years now and coming to terms with his guilt and responsibility and duty to heaven, and everything else that’s been burdening our poor angel since he pulled Dean out of Hell.

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [lucifer (the one on spn-- not my kid)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn---not-my-kid%29) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [spn 11.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.22) [spn 11.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.09) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [spn 5.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.13) [spn 9.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.18) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Jul 14, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/147399531830/oh-wise-mittens-ive-just-had-an-absolutely)

178 notes

**[keeperofcuriousthings](https://keeperofcuriousthings.tumblr.com/) asked: Oh wise Mittens. I've just had an absolutely terrifying thought, after reading that Misha said Cas is back at being a badass warrior, and now that he confirmed Cas' sex-hair is back too, I found myself wondering; what if he's "re-set" to S4 Cas? BAMF angel of the Lord, having no recollection of the past 8 years? If the angel banishing that Lady Toni Bevell is different to the other sigils, or they "hand-wave" reason as "God did something to Heaven before he left again"? How else is old-Cas back?**

Ooh, hello! This is a complicated one, and I haven’t had much coffee yet *pauses to gulp coffee* but I wanted to get this answered soonest and not hang on to it, because it’s sort of timely, what with Misha saying these things at Pittcon, on the FB answer, etc., and with little snippets coming in from set now that they’re back to filming.

As far as Castiel’s plot arc, and why it’s so important for him to finally be “reset” to Original Flavor BAMF Cas (and I’ll explain how I’m using the word “reset” in a second, I promise it’s not scary), this really goes back to what happened to him in 8.23. I need to start with a little backstory in order to explain why I’m not worried about this at all.

The only other first-hand report we have of what it’s like for an angel to tear out their grace is from Anna way back in s4. She described it as a horrible experience, but she’d  _chosen_  it. Cas never had that choice. Nor was he allowed to then experience a full human life in his own vessel from birth to death like Anna was expecting to, and to forget that he’d ever been an angel. He was returned to earth as-is to suffer what Metatron had done to him. He’d experienced the sickness of having stolen grace burning him out. And when he finally got his own grace back, it was just a small fragment of the original and he’s never been as powerful as he was before. As far as we know, the only angel that could still fly post-8.23 was Lucifer. I guess the cage was good for something anyway, and protected him from his wings burning off.

Imagine, on top of all his guilt, depression, and pdsd, that he’s  _also_  lost the essential thing that had always been at the core of his identity and purpose. I’ve been trying to think of a good analogy, but maybe this will work for you. It’s like a concert pianist is in a car accident and it takes a long time for them to recover physically, but even when their body works perfectly again they can never really play the piano again. Whatever part of their brain or whatever that made them great, that interpreted the music, is just… gone. Can you even imagine that? I think that’s a very small and human comparison of what Cas has had stolen from him.

He never had the choice.

Now that he’s physically recovered and whole again (thanks to whatever Chuck did to him, and having Lucifer ejected from him), I’m actually GLAD he seems to have been restored to his full power. And I’ll explain why, but let me get these important bullet points out of the way first. Here’s the screengrab I made of it for reference purposes first, because there is NOTHING special or different about it (which is detailed in that very long linked post above):

  * Lady Toni’s spell was nothing more than an ordinary angel banishing spell. I made [a post about this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145616990070/the-mechanics-of-angel-banishing-sigils) (okay, I added a snip to [@messier51](https://tmblr.co/mA5yNwzCnkuZOWol3o9dBqw)′s already excellent and thorough post about angel banishing sigils, which is also worth a read) shortly after the episode aired when people were worried it was some special, altered sigil that might have killed Cas, or done something extra to him. Nope. Standard Angel Banishing.
  * It’s possible that the Heaven Problems (i.e. angels getting their wings back) were handwaved by Chuck when he swooshed out with Amara, but that remains to be seen. I don’t think that would negatively affect Cas, nor reprogram him or restore him to angel default. I don’t think Chuck would undo near-on a decade of personal growth in his favorite little angel (how many times did Chuck resurrect him now without undoing all the work Cas did personally? Why would he start now? Chuck’s kind of fond of free will, don’t you know.)
  * Right now, as of the last seconds of 11.23, Cas believed that Dean was dead and gone. His ONLY mission was Dean’s final instruction, to take care of Sam. Well, Sam had really needed the HUMAN kind of taking care of. Comfort, companionship, friendship, support. Cas was trying to be that for him, because Dean had asked him to. Toni banishing him like that, threatening Cas’s ability to help Sam, was likely the equivalent of pushing the HULK SMASH button on Bruce Banner, you know? Cas now has a reason to draw on his entire range of angelic abilities and powers, to get back to Sam and stand at his side against this threat.
  * After being human, and then a damaged and broken version of an angel, for so long (more than 3 years!) I’m thrilled to see him be able to stretch his metaphorical wings again. He absolutely NEEDS to, in order to recover and feel whole and useful and  _himself_  again after so long being manipulated, controlled, and tortured by others. Because now he has something to compare with being that all-powerful angel he always steadfastly thought he was. He has his own sense of humanity.



He’s been asked almost since his first appearance on this show where his loyalties lie. Even back in s4, other angels were questioning him on it. That was the entire point of 4.17, after all. For the first time ever, he’s going to be able to really ask these questions of himself, not having to battle mind control, not having outside limits placed on his power, not having his grace forcibly stolen. Everything he does from here on out will be HIS OWN FREE CHOICE. AND THAT IS HUUUUUUGE. *did I put enough U’s in there?*

The big bad this season isn’t a supreme deity. It’s not a monster, or a force of nature. It’s just [people](http://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/141137286132).

How much use are Cas’s spectacular angel powers going to be against  _people_  who know a little more about angels than the average person? People like Toni who don’t even give him a chance to use all that power and just boop him off to Australia instead? I think for the first time ever, angel powers might work against him…

Except for the fact that now, in addition to the BAMF Angel of the Lord, Cas is also  _Cas_. He’s learned a thing or two about people. His people skills aren’t quite so rusty as they were back in s6, you know?

This is a season of discovery and understanding for ALL THREE members of TFW. I think it was Jared that said something about it at Pittcon over the weekend? Maybe? That they’re really going to be exploring what they all want out of life… and this is where Cas’s arc has brought him. This isn’t a choice based on “doing what he had to do,” or out of duty, or because he had no other choice. This is going to be a real uninfluenced choice about who and what and where he really wants to be, and he can finally, truly make that choice.

I can’t even begin to express how excited I am about all of this, and not just for Cas, but for Sam and Dean as well! :)

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [banishing sigils](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/banishing-sigils) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [lady toni bevell](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lady-toni-bevell) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [keeperofcuriousthings](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/keeperofcuriousthings) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[Sep 20, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150705074520/woah-that-anon-jumped-the-gun-with-the)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: woah that anon jumped the gun with the 'relationships' thing but it made me wonder what your stance on the angel sibling *dynamic* thing is? I always thought they were brother and sister like monks and nuns are brothers and sisters. i always kinda thought balthazar was on the romantic end of unrequited feelings for Cas but i never thought of it as incest? sorry if you've talked about this before or if it squicks you out to think about**

Hello there, and it’s no problem at all. Doesn’t squick me at all.

I never thought of angels as “people.” Sort of the same way I don’t think of Chuck and Amara as people. They’re just… other. Angels are “celestial wavelengths of intent,” however we want to think of that. Pure energy when unmanifested in their “true forms” that could be visible to humans (possibly with eye-burning results).

They call each other brother and sister, but to me that’s like referring to channel 9 and channel 4 on the tv as brother and sister. It’s a concept that doesn’t really have a human equivalent, so we shorthand it to something our minds can wrap around.

Now when they take on human vessels and “play human” as Balthazar or even Gabriel did, that’s one thing. When they choose to fall like Anna did, that’s another. They obviously identified with their vessels enough to  _be_  their vessels, you know?

And now Cas does, too. And he lived for a time as a human without grace. I think it’s got to change the way he views the typical angelic curiosity about human emotions, relationships, romance, feelings, and sexuality.

It’s complicated? :D

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Sep 28, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151083745320/hope-you-dont-mind-a-question-im-watching)

4 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hope you don't mind a question. I'm watching season 10, just finished episode 3 and I'm confused as to why the angels don't have their wings back? If they stopped Metatron?**

I never mind a question! :)

Their wings burned when they were cast out of heaven in 8.23. As far as we know (because Crowley translated the spell for Sam and Kevin back in s9), the spell that cast them out is irreversible.

As far as we know, the only angel who still has his wings is Lucifer (I guess because he was safely locked in the cage and had been cast out of heaven eons before?)

But yeah, Metatron had wings until Cas stole his grace in 10.17, and none of the other angels have had functioning wings since 8.23. The few scenes we’ve had of their wings have depicted them all burnt and skeletal (Gadreel in Sam in 9.02, and Cas getting his grace back in 10.18).

Um, it occurs to me that that is probably a spoiler… >.>

[spn 9.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.02) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 10.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.17) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [which is apparently STILL effed up THANKS METATRON](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-apparently-STILL-effed-up-THANKS-METATRON) [i mean there's a reason my metatron tag is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-there%27s-a-reason-my-metatron-tag-is) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Oct 4, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151348653650/1-i-dont-think-it-matters-what-johns-line-is)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: (1) I don't think it matters what "John's line" is and what Mary's line would be in terms of her being Luci's vessel. I've seen that interpretation a lot: Angels must stick to certain family lineages. Michael told Dean "it's a bloodline” and people think he meant that only certain bloodlines can house certain angles. But I think it makes more sense to say that certain family bloodlines are just more capable of being vessels for angels – any angel. Archangels, like Luci and Michael, just needed**

It’s also been made clear that Archangels are something far more than seraphs or other angels… Cas says in 4.18:

> [ibelieveinthelittletreetopper](http://ibelieveinthelittletreetopper.tumblr.com/post/151339721508/1-i-dont-think-it-matters-what-johns-line-is):
>
>> (2) stronger bloodlines to better contain them. Like the Winchesters – and maybe Mary. We know from Gadreel going from his vessel to Sam, Hael wanting Cas’ vessel, Luci hopping from Nick to Sam to Cas and now this new guy in season 12, and Hannah going between her two vessels (who obviously were not related) that Angels (including archangels) are not tied to just one true family lineage. It just depends on how capable the family lineage is of containing an angel. 
>> 
>> =====
>> 
>> I much prefer that certain bloodlines belong to certain angels. There’s nothing to say that Hannah’s vessels weren’t related. And there some trivia somewhere that Nick - Lucifer’s vessel - was somehow distantly related to Mary.
>> 
>> Angels can certainly possess people not in their bloodline but they will be weaker and it will destroy the vessel. Certain vessels - like Jimmy and Sam are extremely durable.
> 
> Archangels are fierce. They’re absolute. They’re Heaven’s most terrifying weapon.

And the condition that Raphael left his vessel in in 5.03 was a pretty dramatic example of the power they inflict on their host vessels. Lucifer had to drink gallons of demon blood and still his alternate vessel ([Nick](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DNick&t=N2VjMWNiYmIyMzhiZTAxZDdjZWM5NTQ3ZTZmNjNlYTcxYzZmNThhZCxaRXplWWozZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151348653650%2F1-i-dont-think-it-matters-what-johns-line-is&m=1)) began breaking down almost immediately. It’s implied both that certain angels inflict more damage on their vessels by virtue of their power level, but also that certain vessels are simply more compatible with angelic possession in general. And all of that is tied to the vessel’s bloodline.

We also saw back in s9 that angels desperate for vessels who took “sub-par” vessels temporarily while searching for a better vessel had the same difficulties as Lucifer did, their vessels “wearing thin” under the burn of grace. Hael was a prime example of this. Her vessel was already breaking down just hours after the fall. We also saw one vessel traumatically explode when she volunteered to be possessed.

But we’ve also seen numerous vessels who are just fine (well, at least physically) post-possession. Gadreel’s alternate vessel wasn’t any worse for wear after waking up in the hospital at the end of 9.01. A little confused, but otherwise physically fine. Nowhere near the catatonic state Raphael left his apparent “true vessel” in.

And we never saw what became of Nick after Lucifer hopped into Sam. My theory remains that the trauma of hosting Lucifer had left him essentially an empty shell and he didn’t survive. Which is why Lucifer hasn’t just popped back into Nick’s vessel. Because he’s been dead since s5.

So yeah, I think it’s been made clear especially for the Archangels that they’re a little something extra, a little bit different than the rest of the angels. And while Sam didn’t suffer any sort of grace damage from hosting Gadreel, it was because his vessel was designed to house an archangel, so hosting a “regular old angel” was a snap.

It was like plugging a 5 watt light bulb into a socket designed to house a 200 watt bulb. Now try that the other way, plug a 200 watt bulb into a socket made for 5 watt bulbs and bad things happen. Like, fire boom explodey things.

And because of their lineage, descendants of Cain and Abel, and the care with which the cupids had set up their parents to meet, it’s been more than heavily implied that they were deliberately created to inherit this particular bloodline from BOTH sides of the family. For very specific angel-housing needs.

It’s also been heavily implied that John Winchester brought the half of the bloodline that was capable of serving as a vessel for Michael, since he’s canonically served as a vessel for Michael. That’s led to the speculation that it was Mary’s bloodline that brought the Lucifer vessel stuff to the table.

The fact that Castiel has served as Lucifer’s vessel without any ill effect is easily explained by the fact that in 5.01 God himself resurrected/rebuilt Castiel in his vessel. He was designed specifically to house angel grace. And he’s been resurrected this same way several more times over the years. It’s not “Jimmy” that was able to contain Lucifer’s grace, but CAS.

Ooookay. Sorry about that. Angel grace is one of my “I can’t leave it alone” issues. :P 

[vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester)

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

[Oct 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151386297810/re-jimmy-one-reason-it-confuses-me-when-people)

26 notes

**Anonymous asked: Re: Jimmy. One reason it confuses me when people claim Jimmy died at the end of season 5 rather than season 4- why would Jimmy be able to survive Raphael exploding Cas, but not Lucifer? It makes no sense.**

Exactly.

His explosion in 4.22 was framed as identical to his explosion in 5.22. To the point where Chuck’s description of the events of 4.22 was superimposed on the visual from 5.22.

Because there was no visual from 4.22 to use, because Cas was annihilated offscreen

We also don’t know 100% that it was Raphael who blew up Cas in 4.22. It was just “an archangel.” It could’ve been Michael. Or even Gabriel. Heck, it could’ve been Chuck himself. Castiel doesn’t even know. All he knew was that an archangel was protecting “the prophet” and came down to try and stop Dean from getting to Sam in time to stop him from freeing Lucifer. Because the angels WANTED Lucifer free.

But yeah, in 5.22 he KNEW it was Lucifer who exploded him. So if he’d meant that as the moment of Jimmy’s death, he would’ve SAID so to Claire.

Even [Ben Edlund](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151367787900/i-always-reserve-in-castiels-overall-makeup-the) has said that the scene in 5.14 was intended to show that CASTIEL was the one craving the meat, and that the prevarication about it being Jimmy’s “vessel” was intended to be a deflection of that truth. Because Cas didn’t say it was Jimmy’s  _soul_  craving the burgers, but his  _vessel_. The physical body itself. Jimmy’s soul was already in Heaven, and that body was all Cas. As an angel, after billions of years never having experienced that sort of craving before, it would’ve been TERRIFYING to him to admit that he’d fallen so far as to become vulnerable to human desires. It was literally the point of his entire s5 story arc, his first major brush with humanity while losing his faith in God.

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [spn 5.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.14) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [jimmy novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jimmy-novak) [i now feel like i'm just making the same point over and over in different ways](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-now-feel-like-i%27m-just-making-the-same-point-over-and-over-in-different-ways) [but this is good because i think this is the most concise version yet :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-this-is-good-because-i-think-this-is-the-most-concise-version-yet-%3AP) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [cas has been dealing with his growing humanity since the start](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/cas-has-been-dealing-with-his-growing-humanity-since-the-start) [and now after being human in s9 and being asked repeatedly what he is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-after-being-human-in-s9-and-being-asked-repeatedly-what-he-is) [i think s12 is finally going to begin giving us some answers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-s12-is-finally-going-to-begin-giving-us-some-answers) [which is why i think this old topic is still so important to clarify](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-why-i-think-this-old-topic-is-still-so-important-to-clarify) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Oct 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151391357900/after-taking-all-your-explanations-into-account-i)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: After taking all your explanations into account, I still hold that Jimmy was killed at the end of season 5, for a variety of reasons. Not trying to pick a fight or get into a meta battle with you. Just looking at it, there is enough evidence to reasonably interpret it ether way.**

Yeah, I just don’t see how it’s even possible.

I mean, obviously I completely disagree, because I’ve seen every possible objection to the reality that he died when, in Cas’s own words, he was “ripped apart on a sub-atomic level by an archangel.”

I guess I’m just struggling to understand how Jimmy could’ve survived that exact scenario in 4.22, but then not survived in 5.22, you know? It just makes zero sense to me.

Why, when Cas used the angel-banishing sigil on himself in 5.18, was he declared brain-dead? Why didn’t Jimmy just “wake up” if he’d been in there with Cas at the time, like he had back in 4.20 the previous time Cas had been banished from his body? The ONLY explanation is that Jimmy was no longer present. Jimmy had already been gone for 18 episodes at that point.

There’s just… nothing to suggest that Jimmy survived 4.22. There’s no evidence that he did. None.

And yeah, I don’t want to get into a “meta battle” over it, because there’s nothing to battle here. If you prefer for personal reasons to believe that Jimmy survived until 5.22, that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with the actual canon facts. You’re perfectly entitled to whatever headcanons make you happy!

But… I haven’t seen an actual single canon fact that convincingly refutes the fact that Jimmy died in 4.22.

[spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [jimmy novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jimmy-novak) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [i mean nobody has to defend headcanons to me everyone gets to enjoy the show however they prefer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-nobody-has-to-defend-headcanons-to-me-everyone-gets-to-enjoy-the-show-however-they-prefer) [but if we're going to ignore canon in order to make that reading then it's not really meta anymore is it?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-if-we%27re-going-to-ignore-canon-in-order-to-make-that-reading-then-it%27s-not-really-meta-anymore-is-it%3F) [i mean go forth and enjoy the headcanon and the fic and whatever but we have multiple sources of evidence disproving it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-go-forth-and-enjoy-the-headcanon-and-the-fic-and-whatever-but-we-have-multiple-sources-of-evidence-disproving-it) [and i definitely don't want to argue with anyone or make anyone unhappy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-definitely-don%27t-want-to-argue-with-anyone-or-make-anyone-unhappy) [but this isn't really a debatable thing? canon doesn't really get more clear than this?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-this-isn%27t-really-a-debatable-thing%3F-canon-doesn%27t-really-get-more-clear-than-this%3F) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	12. Chapter 12

[Oct 8, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151538491360/oh-gosh-im-rewatching-1116-safe-house-right-now)

19 notes

Oh gosh I’m rewatching 11.16 Safe House right now, and I just realized something. The state the soul eater’s victims are in, described by the doctor who worked both sets of cases as:

> RUFUS: And she's…?  
> DR. RICHARDS: Same as her son. Weird mark on the ankle, that’s it.  
> BOBBY: So it's…some kind of coma?  
> DR. RICHARDS: None like I’ve ever seen.  
> RUFUS: How do you mean?  
> DR. RICHARDS: Well, their vitals are fading rapidly. They don’t show some signs of rallying soon, I’m worried we may lose them.  
> [INTERIOR - HOSPITAL - DAY - IN THE PRESENT]  
> SAM: So, what happened?  
> DR. RICHARDS: What happened, I have no idea. The next day, mother and son woke up, both perfectly fine. Obviously I hope the same thing happens here, with these two… their vitals are failing as well. So…

Because this wasn’t just some coma. Their souls had literally been removed from their body, and not just the “energy” portion of the soul like Amara removed, but their entire consciousness, every last bit of their life force that animated their bodies, you know? And I can’t help connect this to the two ways we’ve seen angel grace enter and leave vessels. I wrote about it some more [here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/116382722325/musings-on-the-season-finale-death-lucifer-and), but really quickly we’ve seen angels completely take over their vessels and then leave again through the mouth taking every last bit of themselves (their power, their personalities, their entire consciousness), but we’ve also seen Cas and Metatron have their grace removed while leaving WHO THEY ARE entirely intact. So maybe souls are similar, a portion of them being the life force that Amara steals (a la how Metatron cut out Cas’s grace, and then Cas turned around and cut out Metatron’s). The power is gone, but some essential part is still left behind to keep their bodies walking and talking, albeit vastly changed.

The soul eater seems to take practically EVERYTHING from a person, not even leaving behind enough to keep the body animated and alive. Hence, the coma.

Okay, this is a lot of buildup to a very simple concept. When Cas used the banishing symbol on his own vessel in 5.18, he effectively banished HIMSELF, FROM HIS OWN BODY. Because Cas has used the banishing sigil on Zachariah (painted on the wall of the green room) and it did not send HIM away, but carved into his own flesh, it banished him FROM the body, you know? There is a difference here.

Now if Jimmy’s soul had still been present in that body, he would’ve woken up just like he had in 4.20. But he didn’t. Cas was in the hospital in the same state as the soul eater’s victims, comatose and fading rapidly. They’d declared him brain dead when he suddenly just woke up (when Cas recovered from the banishing and returned to his body).

So both angel grace and human souls seem to have this in common…

But enough of that. I’m also basically flailing my way through this entire rewatch because EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. so prominently features hands and handprints and hearts and love and it’s just too much and was s11 even real?

[spn 11.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.16) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [seriously this is mittens catnip](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-this-is-mittens-catnip)

 

[Nov 8, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152901850595/what-do-you-think-since-heaven-is-closed-of-and)

28 notes

**[inessencedevided](http://inessencedevided.tumblr.com/) asked: What do you think: since heaven is closed of and even angel radio is completely silent (according to 12x04), shouldn't Cas's power run out again like it did in season 5? A part of me seriously doubts that these writers even remember seasons 1 to 5**

Ooh, interesting thought, but I interpreted Dean’s line there differently.

> ****Sam:**  **So what’s the word? Cas have anything?  
>  **Dean:**  Yeah. Good news, there’s nothing on angel radio and Heaven’s still on lockdown. So rogue angel is out. **  
> **

Sam was specifically asking if Cas had anything on their case, wondering if Cas had heard anything on angel radio specifically about their case, but he hadn’t. I didn’t think he meant to imply that angel radio is completely silent, just on the specific subject of there being a rogue angel causing problems in that town where Dean and Sam were investigating.

And Heaven’s been “on lockdown” really since the angels all fell in 8.23/9.01. Only after Metatron started using the heaven portal spell has it been open in any way again, and as far as we know that’s still the current situation. If angels want to come to earth, they have to use that portal. But it’s still closed.

I’d also assumed during s5 that Cas was  _specifically_  cut off from Heaven as a punishment for his rebellion during the apocalypse, that all of Heaven hadn’t gone “on lockdown,” because all the other angels still retained their power just fine back then. Even in s9 the angels still retained most of their power, aside from their ability to teleport (i.e. wing-related powers). Unless they institute something specific like that again, explicitly cutting Cas off from power as a punishment, I’m not sure heaven being “on lockdown” would affect him one way or the other, aside from the obvious preventing him from physically returning to Heaven.

Not to mention, which angel was responsible for cutting off his power in s5? Because most of the old Heaven Power Structure is… dead now. They made a point throughout s11 to remind us of this: *note that this starts off with facts, but the last few points are pure speculation on my part*

  * In 11.02 the angels sent to deal with Cas came prepared with the Angel Reprogramming Torture Hat. Neither of them really knew how to even use it. One asked the other, who replied, “I saw Naomi do it. Once.”
  * In 11.03 we had Tim and Doug, an angel and a demon, meeting at a bar to commiserate about the similar lack of leadership in both Heaven and Hell, coming to the conclusion that it was “up to the little guy” now.
  * In 11.06 there are several long scenes with Crowley and his demons where they’re commenting on how Hell’s ranks have been severely depleted (because Amara kept eating them), to the point where they didn’t even have anyone guarding the door anymore.
  * I think, because of the 11.02 Angel and Demon Bar Chat we’re supposed to extrapolate a similar situation in Heaven (due to the last 7 years’ worth of depleting the ranks of angels through the Apocalypse, the Civil War, Godstiel, the Leviathan, the Angel Fall Event, the war between angel factions in s9 &10, etc.) Unlike Hell and their eternal recruiting campaign, Heaven can’t just go out and ~make~ more angels. Their numbers have suffered greatly.
  * In 11.09 we see just how easy it is for Amara to obliterate angels when she wipes out three of the most capable and ambitious leadership types left in Heaven. (RIP Tim, we hardly knew ye) (yes I know his name wasn’t actually Tim blame [@powerfulweak](https://tmblr.co/m0VxwqT5Mkws_qB-6LRoKgQ) but he will always be Tim in my heart)
  * In 11.10 Cas talks with Ambriel, who proves to him how thin the ranks must be for them to send someone who has essentially zero experience with working on earth (she didn’t even realize that it shouldn’t be dark at midday). She also only knew Cas through the heavenly rumor mill, and it sounded like a lot of her information had suffered from the breakdown of communication inevitable when stories are repeated third and fourth hand, you know? There likely aren’t very many angels left that know any of those stories from direct personal experience.
  * This is largely confirmed in 11.18 when Casifer strolled into Heaven and organized a meeting with what passed for the folks currently in charge. They’re running heaven by committee. I’ve referred to them as the “watercooler angels” because that’s largely what their function has always been. They’re the worker bees. They know how to keep Heaven running but that’s really about it. They’re the sweater-vested steno pool, not Heaven’s Warriors or Leaders.
  * Metatron was the last angel who likely had the kind of  _knowledge_ necessary to pull those sorts of Big Levers, and Amara booped him out of existence. As far as we know, there’s also no new Prophet who can even read the tablets and revive any of this sort of knowledge, since the tablets weren’t meant for angels to read.
  * We know Crowley is also probably one of the last beings on earth who knew how to use the Angel Reprogramming Torture Hat, but I doubt his knowledge extends to the mechanisms governing how power is doled out in Heaven.
  * Lucifer is probably the only angel left now with the  _power_ to make those sorts of Big Changes, and is probably the only being on the planet who could bypass the “lockdown” and fly directly to Heaven.



Then again, we also know that when Metatron gave Cas his own grace back in 10.18, Metatron warned him that it was only  _part_  of his grace. That some of it was destroyed in the spell. We aren’t really sure if it “grew the rest of the way back” over time, or if it maybe was even further damaged by suffering the Attack Dog spell in early s11, or how Lucifer possessing him may have affected it, or how Chuck healing Lucifer and his body may have affected him. or how Amara ripping Lucifer from his body may have affected him. These are things that I do think will eventually be addressed one way or another.

But the angels with the actual power to cut Cas off (because like I said, I always understood that to be personal and specific to Cas and not a generalized severing of the power flow from heaven to earth) are pretty much all dead. Metatron, Naomi, Zachariah, Uriel, Anna, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Hester, Hannah– really pretty much every “in charge” angel we’ve ever met– are all dead. What’s left in the Heavenly Ranks is basically the pencil pushers and the record keepers.

At least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. Maybe the show will surprise us?

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [there's too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there%27s-too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)[inessencedevided](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/inessencedevided)

 

[Dec 9, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154273737520/fear-must-be-a-factor-too-imo-a-nephilim-is-a)

17 notes

**Anonymous asked: fear must be a factor too, imo. a nephilim is a whole different creature that might be more powerful, something angels could not control, a threaten, add as that anon pointed out their disdain for humans so they consider them abominations, something that must be forbbiden,**

Confession: This message has been sitting in my inbox most of the day, and I no longer recall exactly which post it’s referring to (sorry, I am a terrible person).

I assume it’s about one of the posts about Cas referring to the nephilim as an abomination, so yeah.

I mean, remember the one he killed in 8.22? She held her own pretty well against two angels for a while. 

> METATRON: And we know what you are - Abomination.  
> WOMAN: Please, I’m not. I try to be nice. I just want to live my life.

Well. I mean, she was. She just wanted to be left in peace. Even Cas felt terrible about the whole situation. We don’t know who her angel parent was, though. Could’ve been anyone, really. But this baby in particular, as Lucifer’s child, Cas is really concerned about. He even specified that there is a major difference between a regular nephilim and the power generated to create an archangel’s child.

I think Cas is afraid.

But yeah, if Metatron hadn’t pushed him to kill the nephilim in 8.22, I think Cas would’ve been perfectly content to let her be.

And oh gosh I’ve been meaning to write meta on both Lucifer and the nephilim all day, but here it’s 11:30 at night and I still haven’t started >.>

[spn 8.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.22) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Jan 2, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155318022450/i-was-wondering-if-being-able-to-read-minds-is-a)

18 notes

**[malec-infatuated-deactivated201](http://malec-infatuated-deactivated201.tumblr.com/) asked: I was wondering if being able to read minds is a unique gift only some angels have or maybe only Cas has? I can't seem to remember any moments where any other Angel has used it, but Cas.**

Hi there! This is really interesting, and made me really think. I think we’ve seen several subtle indications that other angels do have and use this power, just not as blatantly as we’ve seen Cas use it (for example when he read Rowena’s mind in 10.23 to discover the thing she loves). We just haven’t seen them use it, possibly for several reasons:

  * most angels don’t really think much of humanity. I think they don’t really ~care~ to read human minds
  * not a lot of other angels have really interacted directly with humanity. even back during the apocalypse they were only on earth and interacting with people at all in order to achieve their own ends



Obviously there are exceptions to this, and while Cas has been shown to directly read someone’s mind, I think we can infer the fact that all angels who take a vessel have at least done this to a certain extent…

Lucifer had to know the minds of his vessels to get them to consent to possession. I’m using him as the example here because we’ve been shown his process so many times, first with Nick, then with Sam, then with Vince. He’s not only got to understand the person he wishes to possess, but also their loved one that he uses to manipulate his potential vessel. I think that implies a certain degree of mind reading, no?

Then we have Gabriel who has spent thousands (?) of years toying with people as a trickster. I think he’d need a little more insight into his victims, both to determine who deserved to get served his particular brand of just desserts as well as to determine the best vehicle by which to deliver them. Guy doesn’t believe in wormholes, he tosses him into a wormhole. The way he manipulated Sam and Dean so expertly in 2.15 illustrates this perfectly. He played up every single one of their little insecurities and petty arguments without ever having met them in person.

Zachariah tried to pull this trick a few times, as well, in 4.17 and 5.04, and again in 5.16. He might not have been as good at it, and he definitely let his disdain for humanity and his disregard for Dean’s intelligence get in the way. Most of his “lessons” backfired on him. He thought he was tugging at Dean one way, but he seriously underestimated Dean’s stubbornness. :P

Maybe they’re just picking up on peoples’ prayers and so it seems like mind reading, but at the very least, yeah, I think this is probably a power that all angels do have, but most of them probably choose to ignore it for their own reasons.

Which suddenly makes me think of the longing retcon. Because Cas even said it, that he could pick up on a longing even if it wasn’t a formal prayer. And in some ways, angels might be picking up on the longings of all of humanity. Unless focusing in on those longings is of some personal use to them (such as seeking out a vessel or using the information they gain for some specific purpose), they probably just tune it out.

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor) [malec-infatuated](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/malec-infatuated)


	13. Chapter 13

[Jan 7, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155542813205/takes-over-the-nearest-flat-surface-now-youve)

51 notes

**[trisscar368](https://trisscar368.tumblr.com/) asked: *takes over the nearest flat surface* Now you've made me think about Purgatory in a not-binge mode mindset. Wouldn't it be fairly logical to assume that the tunnel to hell works under the same precepts as the portal out of Purgatory? That portal out in and of itself makes zero sense without the context of either the Trials or a more Dante-esque possibility that souls can escape Hell on their own. And I'm utterly questioning how Cas got into Hell to grab Dean without needing a hellgate. (1/)**

> There would have been zero need for a garrison to fight if Cas could simply have teleported in to where Dean was being held. And now I’m questioning why the garrison even needed to fight when the only way to kill an angel is with an Angel blade… and why the angels didn’t know that. What secret weapons of Hell have we not seen yet? Had angel deaths been blamed on demons in the past when it was someone else’s fault? I need… so much backstory and worldbuilding notes. (2/)
> 
> Stop making me question everything :P

No.

:D

*cracks knuckles*

Let’s take this point by point:

1\. The portal through which Dean escaped Purgatory apparently only opened because HE, A HUMAN, WAS PRESENT IN PURGATORY. And as Benny said, “It’s a human portal, jackass. Only humans can pass through. I show you the door, you hump my soul to the other side.” We saw it seal itself up once Dean stepped through it.

2\. It’s possible that in addition to the Return To Earth Portal there was also the Escape To Hell version. Maybe both portals only open up when a human soul is present in Purgatory, since human souls aren’t supposed to be in Purgatory at all, while Earth and Hell are both places designed for human souls to exist (albeit in very different conditions…)

2a. Hell and Purgatory are very different places that were created for different purposes, and function in metaphysically different ways. Purgatory was ALWAYS a locked dimension. Much like how Amara was locked away in her own little dimension, and later Lucifer’s Cage was designed to be an inescapable place, a trip to Purgatory was always meant to be a one-way, with no return possible.

2b. Hell has never been a completely locked dimension in this way. Demons have always been able to escape, given the right conditions. They could be summoned (crossroads demons have a long history of bopping around on the planet, yeah?), and it seems that the limits placed on demons leaving Hell were more a function of the Ruling Entity controlling the comings and goings of hell’s denizens rather than a physical inability to leave the place. Meg, Azazel, Alastair, Lilith, Ruby, Crowley– even Specky from 1.04 managed to run free on the planet before the hellgate was opened. I always thought of the hellgate opening more like a bunch of kids sneaking out through an open window rather than getting official permission to go through the front door like most demons do.

In s11, after Crowley began losing his grip on Hell, and Amara was gobbling up his minions like grapes, we learned that he didn’t even have anyone guarding the front door anymore. We also had a lot more “rogue demons” amassing their own power bases on Earth, like the demon in 11.15 was doing with Gunner Lawless.

2c. In fact, I always imagined that the whole point of the Hell Trials in s8 was to effectively seal off Hell in the same way that Purgatory was sealed off. In effect, it was quite similar to Metatron’s spell that dumped all the angels out of Heaven.

And OH GOSH WOULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN AWFUL IF THE HELL TRIALS SLAMMING THE GATES ON HELL HAD RESULTED IN EVERY DEMON IN HELL DUMPED OUT ONTO THE EARTH?! Seems like a damn fine reason to have stopped before their final act of hubris probably would’ve resulted in THE WORST DISASTER EVER.

3\. Cas and the other angels didn’t need a hellgate to get into Hell, because ^^. Hell was never a sealed dimension.

4\. We know Lucifer had crypts filled with all sorts of weapons, which he called for in 11.15. But his crypts had long been looted by other demons (including Crowley, who’d established his own storage unit crypts). Demons knew about these crypts back in s8. Some demons loyal to Lucifer (like Meg), had known of them long before then, too. What weapons might’ve been stored there? Blades that could kill angels?

I’ve tried to describe what Heaven might actually look like, compared to how it’s portrayed in three dimensions so that we can actually SEE it in a way that’s comprehensible to our small human brains. Compared to angels, and even compared to demons, we have rather limited powers of perception, you know? 

I figured Hell was similar. Humans need to mentally “overlay” something we can understand atop a realm where beings’ true forms are multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent, or formless smokemonsters.

So while nothing might be able to kill an angel except for another angel (or an angelic weapon, or maybe some of the stuff Lucifer had stored in his crypts…), can you imagine the damage 10,000 demons harrying a single angel, even in its true form, have the potential to inflict?

Hence why things such as the Rit Zien angels had jobs, dealing the merciful death blow to an angel rendered beyond help by a demon attack. Angels might be pretty damn powerful, but we’ve seen them hurt plenty… like when Alastair was torturing Cas in 4.16, and was performing some spell to banish Cas out of his vessel (or so it seemed).

  


And I can only imagine that an incursion of angels plowing their way through hell to find Dean Winchester’s slightly tarnished soul would’ve brought demonkind out in MASSES to attack. But the battle happened in a dimension that humans just can’t perceive, you know? So this is what we get to actually see.

Like what we saw when the angels attempted to smite Amara with the Big Heaven Laser, or when the demons tried to attack her similarly. The demons managed to toss her around a lil bit, do her some surface-level damage. The angel laser did some more substantial damage that Rowena was called in to treat for a while… but she was eventually able to overcome the damage.

Last, I refer you to this quote from 8.17 when Cas was talking with Meg:

> MEG: Would it kill you to watch a movie, read a book?  
> CASTIEL: A movie, no. But a book with the proper spells – yeah, it could, theoretically, kill me.

Does that make it better or worse? :P

[trisscar368](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/trisscar368) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [demons out](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/demons-out) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [can y'all tell i spend WAY too much time thinking about all this? because I do](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/can-y%27all-tell-i-spend-WAY-too-much-time-thinking-about-all-this%3F-because-I-do)


	14. Chapter 14

[Jan 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156449596150/so-they-didnt-address-any-prayers-from-dean-and)

102 notes

**Anonymous asked: So they didn't address any prayers from Dean and Sam to Cas at all? Really? What are your thoughts on this? It wasn't a warded prison? When Dean's calling him and he doesn't answer he could just pray like hey buddy answer your phone!**

This has been a thing all season long, frankly. Since 12.01, when Cas had no idea that Dean was alive until he returned to the bunker and found him there.

Prayer had been a major thing for Dean in the past (I prayed to you, Cas! Every night!), and we know that Cas is able to pick up on a longing, since that’s how he found Claire that one time… BUT THERE WAS ONE KEY DIFFERENCE HERE!

DEAN HAD NO IDEA WHERE HE WAS EVEN BEING HELD!

So, prayer apparently doesn’t work as an automatic angel GPS locator beacon. Yes, Cas used Claire’s “longing” to find her in the past, BUT CLAIRE KNEW WHERE SHE WAS. She could see things like road signs and landmarks and the like. All Dean knew (or Sam, for that matter) was that they’d been taken somewhere and locked in a concrete box. All the prayer and longing (or even dreamwalking) in the world couldn’t have given Cas any more information than he objectively and textually admitted to having.

I think the fanon idea of what prayer and dreamwalking are capable of has been muddled up with what is actually canon about these abilities.

Basically, prayer doesn’t solve all their problems, has NEVER solved all their problems, and cannot solve them all.

(I agree that it would’ve been nice to know that Dean actually WAS praying to Cas, even if it was just a hopeless “I’m still here but I’m going crazy, man” kind of prayer, but UGH WITH THE POOR ABANDONED CAS FEELS, of him sitting alone in the dark in the bunker feeling ultimately useless in the face of his loss of the Winchesters, and the blame for their absence weighing on him like never before… THE HORROR OF BEING ABLE TO HEAR DEAN’S HELPLESS PRAYERS YET DO NOTHING TO HELP HIM?! Would’ve been so much more painful…

*sits here for 10 minutes staring at the wall like a gelatinized lump of sads*

*I’m watching 5.17 right now, so all of this feels about 10 times worse than it should*

*oh god Cas’s voice mail message has evolved over the years hasn’t it?*

*where was I? what was this about? RIGHT. PRAYER.*

S12 was promising a return to early seasons Badass Castiel Angel of the Lord on a mission, and we’ve seen that… but in a very different way… because CAS HIMSELF IS HAVING A CRISIS OF IDENTITY. Physically and mentally and emotionally, Cas is hovering over a precipice. He’s got a foot in heaven and a foot on earth. He’s still got some of his angel nature and powers, but he’s also grown decidedly more human. He’s lost his wings, yet he’s still an angel… sort of. He’s experiencing emotions very much like a human would, but without the lifetime of experience that a human has dealing with emotions. And he’s not always coping well with them.

Rather than shrugging this off, we’ve watched him struggle mightily under the combined weight of his depression and guilt, and the fundamental disconnect he’s experiencing because he still has his grace and should still technically be an angel who isn’t subject to the burden of these human emotions.

Cas fans have been wondering when Cas is going to get his Big Emotional Importance in the story, and THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. This is how they’re having Cas’s Big Story unfold.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine that Dean has prayed to Cas this season, but he hasn’t actually had any information to pray AT Cas that could’ve helped his situation, you know? And even once they’d escaped, just praying the information they had once they’d sort of figured out where they were being held at Cas wouldn’t have been enough to serve their needs.

They needed to know that Cas was coming for them. Dean NEEDED confirmation that Cas had heard, and understood, and was on the way. Because they were “on the clock.” They only had until midnight, and he needed to see Cas one last time. THAT WAS THE ENTIRE POINT OF GETTING THAT VERBAL CONFIRMATION THAT CAS UNDERSTOOD AND WAS ON THE WAY, rather than just praying and hoping Cas heard it.

I’m also wondering if prayer is even functioning the same way it has in the past. We know that Angel Radio is still operational after the Nephilim Announcement of Screaming and Smashed Coffee Cups, but aside from that, we haven’t seen any confirmation that Cas’s ability to receive prayers is functioning with the intensity that it always had in the past. Which also adds to the “between two worlds” sort of limbo that Cas is occupying, feeling like he has no idea where he belongs, or even who he is anymore.

Which it ends up being remains to be seen, but I trust Dabb not to have fucked up canon so badly that whoopsie he just forgot that prayer existed…

Because the last time we really saw Dean pray to Cas? 9.01, when Cas was entirely incapable of answering, because he was effectively human and cut off from all his angelic powers. Before that? Was at the end of 8.16, when Dean’s prayers were again going unanswered, because Cas was being mind-controlled by Naomi. And what broke the connection?

Cas claimed he didn’t know… ouch…

Another part of this is the fact that we’ve been shown over and over again that Dean doesn’t entirely think of Cas as an angel anymore. 

“He’s not an  _it_. He’s Cas!”

He’s family. He’s Dean’s best friend. He’s not a hammer or a tool. Dean thinks of him as a person first, and now cue Dean’s self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy. Who is he to pray to angels? I mean, I don’t think this is the major reasoning at work here, but it’s certainly at least a small part of it.

But it’s not the fucking plot hole that I keep seeing people screaming about. It’s sort of beside the point when we look at the bigger themes at work here.

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[it's not a shippy thing it's an 'are you an angel or a man' thing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-not-a-shippy-thing-it%27s-an-%27are-you-an-angel-or-a-man%27-thing) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

 

[Feb 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156910445135/it-is-all-so-random-and-confusing-if-i-am-not)

5 notes

**Anonymous asked: it is all so random and confusing, if i am not mistaken angels cannot teleport anymore, so they cannot move freely around, only when forced by banishing sigils, but they can switch vessels? is it that when they fell their loss of powers only affect them when they are constrained in a human vessel? have anyone made a recount of wat powers they still keep and which ones they lost, and also retconning of new powers they did not have in past seasons they have now?**

*sighs*

Angels lost their wings in the fall in 8.23. The only angels who retain that power were Metatron (before Cas took his grace in 10.17 and then he died in 11.21), Lucifer (because he was “protected” from the fall by virtue of the fact that he’d already “fallen” and was in the cage), and theoretically Michael (since he’s also been in the cage all this time).

They can’t teleport. They can’t time travel. Some of them were “weakened” by the fall more than others, and some of them were outright killed by that event.

Other than Cas, all angels have the ability to leave their vessels. We saw an AWFUL lot of this back in s9 when they were all floating around trying to FIND vessels after being ejected from Heaven, but we haven’t really seen it much lately (other than Lucifer, who was vessel-hopping in early s12).

I don’t know if I’d say they their powers are lessened by being contained in a human vessel. Being able to float around as an amorphous wavelength of celestial intent doesn’t seem like a distinct advantage when they’re still stuck on Earth.

And I almost unilaterally dislike the way the word “retcon” is tossed around so casually, because about 90% of the time I see people saying it, they’re doing so with a lot of negative baggage attached. It’s usually said as a kneejerk reaction to something they don’t like or haven’t entirely thought through. And it’s not always a bad thing.

As far as a list of powers that ALL angels retain? I’m not sure. It’s always seemed like some angels were “better” in some areas than others, you know. Just like people. Some angels are better soldiers, some are strategists, some are specialists at healing, at… whatever. What specific powers are you thinking of here?

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157843769580/for-the-whole-soul-thing-does-everything-in-the)

8 notes

**Anonymous asked: For the whole soul thing, does everything in the universe work off soul energy? Is that why Amara had to eat so many when she first got out, because even if she had the potential for a lot of power, maybe Chuck has made it so the only way you can actually use it is if you have souls powering it. It would make sense, since Grace doesn't keep working if you're not connected to heaven (evidence: season 5), so angels and gods need souls. And most monsters I can think of were once human too.**

Hi there! I was inspired tonight to dive into my inbox, and I know this message has been here for a while, but I think it’s pretty interesting, so heck, why not try to answer it. :D

Everything in the universe does seem to work off SOME sort of energy… I mean post s10 right after the darkness was released and I started speculating on the whole duality thing, I made more than a few borderline crack posts trying to explain how I predicted s11 to go based on physics principles…

[i never in a billion years would’ve thought i’d quote einstein and nasa in a supernatural meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%20never%20in%20a%20billion%20years%20would've%20thought%20i'd%20quote%20einstein%20and%20nasa%20in%20a%20supernatural%20meta)

I have a tag for that.

I’ve also answered the question on why Cas lost power during s5… since he was the ONLY earthbound angel who seemed to lose power that way…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152901850595/what-do-you-think-since-heaven-is-closed-of-and>

And frankly, if the human souls in heaven aren’t acting as some sort of humongous battery (because I assume even a soul NOT directly tapped for power like Lily Sunder was chopping off bits to power her magic still gives off a “radiation” of power, and billions upon billions of them all stacked together would radiate… a megashitton of power just by existing in a controlled space), then what was the point of this device?

from [11.18](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fscreencapped.net%2Ftv%2Fsupernatural%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D1724%26pid%3D1961537%23top_display_media&t=NzEyNThhN2E5YmVmYTM2YTMyYThlOWExZjI3ZGNiYjU0YWFiMzViMixjNUx4M256Qg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F157843769580%2Ffor-the-whole-soul-thing-does-everything-in-the&m=1)

[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [check any of those tags for extensive further reading](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/check-any-of-those-tags-for-extensive-further-reading) [as well as the one linked above in the post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/as-well-as-the-one-linked-above-in-the-post)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Apr 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160154927130/hey-do-you-think-there-is-any-significance-to-the)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey, do you think there is any significance to the mention of Gadreel in the episode, other than the obvious grace-extraction? Gadreel possessed Sam to heal himself of his angel-fall injuries but also fixed Sam from inside(just like the Nephilim and Kelly), in 9x02,when Sam is in trouble from three demons and is knocked out, Gadreel took over and killed them(just like the Nephilim and Cas against Dagon), Sam wasn't mind-controlled, Gadreel only took over when he needed to, so it's similar right?**

Yeah, I think it might be ~something~ along those lines… But I also honestly don’t think Cas could’ve left Sam and Dean lying there like that if he were really all there, you know?

At the Heaven portal, after spending the entire episode (and the last however many weeks in Heaven and working with the angels) in direct betrayal of Sam and Dean in order to keep them OUT of this fight, immediately after Joshua was killed at the portal, immediately after Dagon was killed there.

Cas left them there, unconscious and vulnerable. I don’t think if Cas was actually CAS he would’ve done that, you know?

But as for mentioning Gadreel, I think that had multiple purposes. First to show that Sam and Dean really HAVE moved past it. There was no bitterness from either of them about it, which proves that they really have discussed it and forgiven each other for that whole mess.

Second, I think we saw the first moment the nephilim took over, when Kelly took his hand in the playground. I’m not sure he’s //possessed// by it the same way Sam was possessed by Gadreel, but he’s definitely under its thrall somehow. For all intents and purposes, he’s ///not Cas/// right now.

I think it could be seen as similar, but not exactly the same.

Which describes an awful lot of s12… it’s pulling so heavily from the entirety of canon, but not giving us any of it in quite the same way as they have in the past.

Things are reversed, playing out between different characters, in different ways, for different reasons– but none of it is playing out the same way it did before…

[pn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim)

 

[heck i've got a lot of really similar tag overlap...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-i%27ve-got-a-lot-of-really-similar-tag-overlap...)

[Apr 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160154927130/hey-do-you-think-there-is-any-significance-to-the)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey, do you think there is any significance to the mention of Gadreel in the episode, other than the obvious grace-extraction? Gadreel possessed Sam to heal himself of his angel-fall injuries but also fixed Sam from inside(just like the Nephilim and Kelly), in 9x02,when Sam is in trouble from three demons and is knocked out, Gadreel took over and killed them(just like the Nephilim and Cas against Dagon), Sam wasn't mind-controlled, Gadreel only took over when he needed to, so it's similar right?**

Yeah, I think it might be ~something~ along those lines… But I also honestly don’t think Cas could’ve left Sam and Dean lying there like that if he were really all there, you know?

At the Heaven portal, after spending the entire episode (and the last however many weeks in Heaven and working with the angels) in direct betrayal of Sam and Dean in order to keep them OUT of this fight, immediately after Joshua was killed at the portal, immediately after Dagon was killed there.

Cas left them there, unconscious and vulnerable. I don’t think if Cas was actually CAS he would’ve done that, you know?

But as for mentioning Gadreel, I think that had multiple purposes. First to show that Sam and Dean really HAVE moved past it. There was no bitterness from either of them about it, which proves that they really have discussed it and forgiven each other for that whole mess.

Second, I think we saw the first moment the nephilim took over, when Kelly took his hand in the playground. I’m not sure he’s //possessed// by it the same way Sam was possessed by Gadreel, but he’s definitely under its thrall somehow. For all intents and purposes, he’s ///not Cas/// right now.

I think it could be seen as similar, but not exactly the same.

Which describes an awful lot of s12… it’s pulling so heavily from the entirety of canon, but not giving us any of it in quite the same way as they have in the past.

Things are reversed, playing out between different characters, in different ways, for different reasons– but none of it is playing out the same way it did before…

  

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

[May 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161246681075/random-question-but-ive-always-wondered)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: Random question, but I've always wondered something about the "Cas has a soul" theory. It seems to be that Nephilim are so powerful because they have a soul and grace. We know that Cas has grace, so if he had a soul too wouldn't he be as powerful as a Nephilim? But it seems that Cas is only as strong as a regular angel at this point. Thoughts? (Also, thank you for all of your interesting meta; it's really fascinating to read!)**

Aw! First of all, thanks! I’m glad you appreciate it :)

I do think that Cas has something akin or equivalent to a human soul. He pretty much had to have SOMETHING human inside him when Metatron cut out his grace. I’ve written an awful lot about [the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/search/on+the+nature+of+angel+grace) and the relationship between [grace and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls). There’s probably some overlap between those two tags…

But I think Jack is exceedingly powerful compared to Cas, irrespective of grace or soul or a combination of the two, because Jack’s grace and soul (for lack of a better way of describing his angelic and human halves) aren’t in conflict with one another.

For Cas, “human or angel” isn’t something he can reconcile and balance within himself. For him it’s an either-or proposition. Us or them. Angel or man. He can’t be both, because for him they’re two separate things. Hence the conflict, and the question he’s been facing and struggling with for years now.

For Jack, though, his human side and his angelic side aren’t two separate conflicting entities within him. He’s both at the same time.Unlike Lily Sunder who had to cannibalize her own soul to work angelic magic (which seemed even more powerful than the angels using their more quickly replenished grace to work the same sort of magic), Jack’s soul and grace seems to be more of a hybrid thing rather than two separate things contained within a single vessel.

I hope this is making sense.

Because that’s how Jack was created. It IS “who he is.” As opposed to Cas, who was created solely as an angel and only acquired humanity when his angelic grace was ripped away from him. That part of him was overpowered again after he took on Theo’s grace in 9.09, and Cas seemed unable to truly connect with his humanity after that (see 9.11 and his mourning his prior enjoyment of a pb&j). It seems to still be in there somewhere, because we still see Cas “falling” multiple times over the rest of s9 and s10. He begins to require sleep again (wearing the Blue Bathrobe of Sadness in 10.01, falling asleep at the wheel while driving with Hannah, then sleeping on a couch). As his stolen grace burned out he returned to a state closer to his human state from early s9.

I think this is why Jack’s power is just… so much more powerful than either a human soul or angelic grace are on their own, because it’s as strong as Lily Sunder’s soul-powered spells but with the rapid recover and limitless potential of angel grace all wrapped up in one thing, instead of two separate things in conflict with each other the way they are for Cas.

Again, I hope this is making sense… :P

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester)[anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

[Jun 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162445321300/postmodernmulticoloredcloak)

432 notes

  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/59e699fee596138b98c82a5bef8edf31/tumblr_orpdxe7f7P1uioo6zo1_500.gif)   
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[postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/162443772042/justrandomspnstuff):

> [justrandomspnstuff](https://justrandomspnstuff.tumblr.com/post/162441183527/postmodernmulticoloredcloak):
>
>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/162438871652/justrandomspnstuff):
>>
>>> [justrandomspnstuff](https://justrandomspnstuff.tumblr.com/post/162433675307/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-mittensmorgul):
>>>
>>>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/162133813087/mittensmorgul-obsessionisaperfume-tinkdw):
>>>>
>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162133105735/obsessionisaperfume-tinkdw-trisscar368):
>>>>>
>>>>>> [obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/162130026292/tinkdw-trisscar368-tinkdw):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/162127685152/trisscar368-tinkdw-cornerbackcastiel):
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [trisscar368](http://trisscar368.tumblr.com/post/162127435234/tinkdw-cornerbackcastiel):
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> [tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/162127073317/cornerbackcastiel-faramaiofnerdwoodforest):
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> [cornerbackcastiel](http://cornerbackcastiel.tumblr.com/post/162124921228/faramaiofnerdwoodforest-6x18-frontierland):
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> [faramaiofnerdwoodforest](http://faramaiofnerdwoodforest.tumblr.com/post/162015705993/6x18-frontierland):
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> **6x18 “Frontierland”**
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> *flails til injury*
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> [Originally posted by theoverlordmisha](https://tmblr.co/ZFNYNy2L4-6ep)
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Same as when Sam is healed by Gadreel in 9x05.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> The golden grace isn’t a Jack specific thing!!!!!!
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> But all three of those instances are examples where the angel grace is being bolstered by a human soul. Cas using Bobby, Gadreel was healing himself with Sam’s soul the entirety of the possession period, and now Jack with a dual soul of his own.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> It makes me wonder what shade of orange Lucifer’s grace would have been if he’d succeeded with using Sam’s soul in The Vessel.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Excellent point! I’m so intrigued by this whole thing. Also I seem to remember the nephilim in s8’s eyes flashed blue not yellow? I may be wrong, but yeah, it’s all very intriguing in terms of continuity and reasoning behind it.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> And in the last gif, we see the blue grace in his eyes, oooh.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> So Jack’s grace is bolstering his own.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yeah, and at the very end of that last gif, a ring of the golden soulgrace or whatever swallows up the blue glow of Cas’s grace. I don’t think he’s been properly able to access his own grace since 12.19, in that moment. And I honestly don’t think he realized that. He firmly believed that he was still entirely himself.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Angelic powers powered by human soul? You mean like this?
>>>>> 
>>>>>   
>    
>    
> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Whops, yellow.
>>>> 
>>>> Debunked.
>>> 
>>> You mean debunked that the golden glow in 12x19 is the nephilim’s grace/power? Actually, I think it IS the nephilim’s grace because the nephilim is exactly a being that has angelic powers and human soul. The nephilim is half angel half human so it makes sense for his power to shine yellow just like when angels or humans draw power from a human soul - because the nephilim is part human, and his power by definition is not fully angelic.
>> 
>> Good point. But it isn’t proof that it’s Jack’s grace because of the color like some people are claiming. It’s just another valid interpretation that it COULD be Jack’s grace. But it’s also valid to assume it could simply be Cas’s grace since there are other instances of the yellow light in healing. I just meant that it isn’t a strange or new color that is being introduced like some people are saying :)
> 
> But Jack made Kelly’s eyes flash gold in the same way in the motel room when he showed her the first vision. And yes Kelly and Cas were physically touching but Cas wasn’t affected, only Kelly was. The easiest explanation is that the golden glow comes from Jack’s power, since golden appears to be the color of an angelic/human soul combination thing and Jack is an angelic/human combination, and both Kelly and Cas had their eyes flash gold as Jack was affecting them. Especially since Cas’ eyes do flash blue for a moment before the golden light reached his face from where Kelly’s hand is touching his own.

Which also makes complete sense for the only other use of an angel’s power glowing golden that I’ve seen in an attempt to debunk that this is not Cas’s grace, but Jack’s– Gadreel!Sam healing himself in 9.05.

Gadreel and Sam were both “compromised” and weakened, and Gadreel had been simultaneously working on healing his own grace while healing Sam’s soul. Since he was healing Sam’s body (currently his own vessel) it makes sense he could tap into Sam’s soul for that.

Like in 9.03 when he healed Cas with pure angelic (blue) grace, the energy expended knocked him unconscious, which was NOT AN OPTION in 9.05. He couldn’t heal himself only to end up unable to render aid to Dean while the Bad Guy was still at liberty.

Like in 9.04 when Gadreel explicitly told Dean he’d be able to resurrect Charlie OR deal with the witch, but not both. Resurrecting Charlie with his own blue angel grace AGAIN left him unconscious on the floor.

Why are people so resistant to the idea that Cas is NOT HIMSELF after 12.19? Why is that such a hard thing to accept? Because this has been Cas’s character development since s4. His struggles have ALWAYS revolved around free will vs destiny, making his own choices vs being manipulated by higher powers and circumstance into situations where he literally has no choice.

The notion that Jack is ACTUALLY some sort of “savior” or will become some rallying figure around with TFW will revolve is… sort of the antithesis of everything the show has ever been about. It’s the equivalent of imagining that s11 could’ve become about Amara being the central savior figure of the universe, and I honestly can’t see anything like that happening with Jack, either.

(I mean I guess they could toss 12 years of character development and go in that direction, but yeeeeesh I honestly do not think they’re going to do that)

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [spn 9.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.05) [spn 9.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.04) [spn 9.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.03) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

[Oct 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166190009860/i-know-there-have-been-times-in-the-series-where)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: I know there have been times in the series where people were in love with the idea of Cas giving up his grace for Dean or dying for him or making some other big sacrifice. And I just really really hate that idea? It reminds me too much of the unhealthy brodependency cycle. I don't want to see Cas become human like that, forced to under duress or making his ultimate life goal be about "bleeding for the Winchesters." We're getting past that. So I'm glad S10 didn't do the grace cure for example.**

Hi there… I feel like I should make at least one disclaimer here before I even start to reply to this…

Disclaimer #1: I am not now, nor have I ever been in love with the idea of Cas giving up his grace FOR Dean, or dying FOR Dean. You used the words “forced” and “under duress.” You even referenced his line from 7.22 about “bleeding for the Winchesters.” Out of context that does sound really bad, and I’ll get to why below, but I really don’t get any of these objections to Cas giving up his grace, because they seem to ignore Cas’s own free will to make that choice for himself, you know? More on that in a second. First,

Disclaimer #2: Hi, I’m MittenWraith and you may remember me from such fanfic offerings as [Revenge of the Subtext](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fseries%2F327056&t=YTg0NWUyMzliZDFiOWZiM2Q0ZTMzMzRhOWY2N2M1ZGE2Mjg2Mjc3NSxWWHducDBYVQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166190009860%2Fi-know-there-have-been-times-in-the-series-where&m=1), which was essentially a rewrite of the end of s10 (that spared Charlie first off) and gave Cas the agency to CHOOSE to give up his grace, not because he was forced to, but because doing so (at the time in canon at the end of s10) also gave him everything he wanted– to be able to stay with Dean and NOT have to watch him murder the world, to finally free himself from the politics and feelings of duty to Heaven (which he’s since essentially declared his loyalty first to the Winchesters over and above Heaven… telling Kelvin to his face that he’s not doing any of this for any sort of redemption in Heaven, he doesn’t even care about that anymore, and referring to the Winchesters as his “family” and the other angels as his “men”). Cas has dissociated HIMSELF from Heaven of his own free will. To his way of thinking, using that grace to save Dean from an eternity of torment was merely a side benefit, you know?

I think we’re approaching this from two fundamentally different basic assumptions about Castiel. I’m not certain if there’s anything I can say that will help you see it from another angle here… but folks keep asking, so I’ll keep trying…

I started writing a thesis (I’m calling it that because it’s gonna be long, and structured like a doctoral dissertation. Hell, I might even write an abstract… it’s gonna be involved) on Castiel’s entire character arc as represented through his struggle for agency and free will against the blind obedience to Heaven that has been forcibly reprogrammed into angels who deviate from their orders. This is the lens through which all of Cas’s development has occurred. As for my thesis, it’s currently stalled out because writing deadlines for pinefest demand I work on that first, and I’ve only covered Cas’s first eight episodes out of 100 and already the paper is more than 1k, so clearly it’s gonna take an astounding amount of time that I just don’t have right now for me to actually research and write…

Point is, even in those first eight episodes (4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.07, 4.09, 4.10, 4.15, 4.16), this is already his main conflict as a character. Duty and obedience to heaven versus thinking for himself and doing what he personally feels is right. We see him push back against his orders in 4.18 giving Dean information that will help him “defy prophecy” for the first time, and then we see him attempt to make a complete break with Heaven in 4.20 only to be captured and dragged back for “angel boot camp.” When he returns to his vessel, he’s entirely back to Full Obedience Mode  _as a function of his grace having been tinkered with in Heaven_. Anna lampshades just how horrible what was being done to him there really was, just as Dean lampshaded just how unhappy Anna was when she was given no other choice but to take her own grace back on in 4.10. Her free will, her  _choice_  to be human was taken away from her and she did “what she had to do.”

Worst. Phrase. On the show. Ever.

In 8.23 Cas may have had his grace taken from him against his will, but he tried to make the best of it. He struggled with his sudden humanity, but by 9.06 he’d made his peace with it.

**CASTIEL** : No, Dean. (He puts the box on the counter and turns to face DEAN.) I’m not. I failed at being an angel. Everything I ever attempted came out wrong. But here … at least I have a shot at getting things right. I guess you can’t see it, but … there’s a real dignity in what I do – human dignity.

His entire conversation with Ephraim underscores just how he feels now, and truly introduces this question for the first time:

**EPHRAIM** : Shh-shh-shhh. It’ll be over soon. I’ll take the pain away.  
 **CASTIEL** : I want to live.  
 **EPHRAIM** : But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

(hey lookie there’s my tag for this entire concept…) but then there’s this:

**EPHRAIM** : You say you want to live. But you can’t see what I see. By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up. You … chose … death.

Because to Ephraim, who it’s been established has NO understanding of human pain, of human emotions at all, ANY pain is something worth killing over. Even a teenage girl being “sorta bummed” about her boyfriend breaking up with her. To him, ANY human emotions were a pain not worth suffering.

Meanwhile Cas had been doing everything in his power to SAVE HIMSELF, attempting to draw a banishing sigil in blood, cutting his hand on the rose thorns, until Dean managed to toss the angel blade to him and he could kill Ephraim before Ephraim killed him. Cas’s will to live was greater than his desire to only live  _as an angel_. Even if he hadn’t fully  _chosen_  humanity for himself back then, he had passed step one of the test and chosen life.

This concept is underscored again when Cas describes to Sam why Dean would cling so hard to being a demon in 10.03:

**SAM** : What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human.  
 **CASTIEL** : Well… I see his point. You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier.

Cas understands, because he’s experienced the same thing… he KNOWS the real joy and profound pain of being human now, and he also knows what it’s like to  _not_  be able to feel those things– not because he knows what it’s like to be a demon, but because he believes it’s similar enough to what it feels like being an angel. Now if that’s not horrifying, and if it doesn’t say bucketloads about Cas’s own personal regret about his own “I did what I had to do” moment in 9.09, in stealing Theo’s grace in what amounted to a sacrifice of his OWN humanity in order to save Dean… Tell me if ANY of this sounds like Cas is happy with this non-choice:

**CASTIEL** (on the phone) : Dean, I don’t have a lot of time, so listen. The leader of the opposition is an angel named Malachi.  
 **DEAN** : How do you know that?  
 **CASTIEL** : He had me. I, uh, I was tortured. But I got away.  
 **DEAN** : How?  
 **CASTIEL** : I… I did what I had to. I became what they’ve become. A barbarian.  
 **DEAN** : What are you – Cas, where are you?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s better I stay away. They’re gonna want me even more now. But I’m gonna be all right. I… I got my Grace back. Well, not mine per se, but it’ll do.  
 **DEAN** : Wait, you’re – you’re back? You got your mojo?  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m not sure. But I am an angel.  
 **DEAN** : And you’re okay with that?  
 **CASTIEL** : If we’re going to war, I need to be ready.  
 **DEAN** : (pause) Cas.  
 **CASTIEL** : Dean. There’s more.  
 **DEAN** : What?  
 **CASTIEL** : Didn’t you say Sam was healed by an angel named Ezekiel?  
 **DEAN** : Uh… Yeah, why?  
 **CASTIEL** : Ezekiel is dead.  
 **DEAN** : What?  
 **CASTIEL** : He died when the angels fell.  
DEAN’s face has a very concentrated “oh this is bad” expression.

A VERY CONCENTRATED “OH THIS IS BAD” EXPRESSION

Under torture by Theo, Cas had asked for a quick death, until he heard that Ezekiel had died in the fall, and realized that Dean had trusted Ezekiel to help heal Sam… THIS INFORMATION WAS WORTH DOING “WHAT HE HAD TO DO” just to be sure that Sam and Dean were safe from this unknown angel that HE had personally vouched for… that we’ve just learned is actually Gadreel…

IT’S ALL A HUGE MESS.

To me, Cas’s decision to take on another angel’s grace was just as much of a non-choice as Metatron stealing his original grace had been. And to Cas, WHAT he is doesn’t necessarily matter as much as the fact that HE CHOSE IT FOR HIMSELF.

Every single time he’s done what he had to do, every time his agency’s been taken from him, the vehicle that made it possible was his grace.

He’s been asked over and over again for years if he’s really an angel (and been told to his face by numerous other angels that he ISN’T an angel anymore), he’s been called a tool and told he was only marginally useful… and yet he’s been called Family and welcomed unconditionally by the Winchesters. Mostly because they’re not FORCING him to be anything in particular, you know?

As to your “Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters” from 7.21, I’ve written a lot about [Cas’s mental state in late s7 here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164700293040/survival-of-the-fittest-rewatch-airs-today-i-have), which goes a long way to give a fuller context to that line. Out of context, it sounds very different to seeing how it fits with the entire picture of Cas’s late s7 guilt. In a lot of ways, running away from his responsibility (think “I don’t fight I watch the bees” and constantly referring to himself and his actions in the third person, with “An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it.”). It took redeeming himself in some small measure by helping to send the Leviathan back to Purgatory in 7.23 for him to even BEGIN to integrate himself again… And then begins his depression/atonement arc that includes his ongoing battle with his own agency via his choice to remain in Purgatory, his complete loss of agency to Naomi, and then Metatron… this has ALWAYS been what has driven and defined Castiel’s narrative, and every bit of character development he’s ever experienced.

And it’s ALWAYS been tied to his identity as an angel and the very existence of his grace. And even HE has said that he doesn’t identify as an angel anymore or feel allied to Heaven, but like Demon Dean clinging to whatever it was that made him a demon because it was easier not to feel that pain, like Soulless Sam desperate to do anything to prevent himself from being reunited with his soul, Cas is still holding on to his grace in a similar way (narratively speaking).

(thing is, once Dean was cured of the Mark and once Sam was reunited with their soul, they were GRATEFUL not to have been left in that unfeeling state, you know? they’ll take the pain, because it beats “being a stepford bitch in paradise.”)

Cas believes he needs his grace to be “useful,” despite already beginning to understand how the Winchesters see him as family. I don’t believe that Cas will be given a “no choice” scenario in which he’ll feel compelled to sacrifice his grace in an emergency situation, as some sort of “throwing himself on a grenade” because he had no other choice. The entire POINT is that it would be his freely-made CHOICE.

No matter WHAT he chooses. I’m not saying he absolutely must give up his grace. I’m saying that every sign and every conflict that’s driven his narrative development over the last 9 seasons has been leading him along this path where eventually he WILL have that choice. And when that time comes, I believe that what he eventually will choose for himself (because he wants it) is to live out a human life with the Winchesters.

I am REALLY looking forward to 13.04, because I think we’re going to gain a LOT of insight into Cas’s current emotional/mental state. And HOW he comes back from his current state of not-aliveness is going to be key to understanding what’s in store for him over the next season. So until then, I’m going to stand by this analysis.

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [are you an angel or a man castiel? (hint: he's no angel)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/are-you-an-angel-or-a-man-castiel%3F-%28hint%3A-he%27s-no-angel%29) [you learned it from the goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-learned-it-from-the-goats) [spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [spn 9.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.06) [spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 7.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.23) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [and probably a lot more episodes but I'm currently burdened by fever delirium and i'm just happy that this reply is marginally coherent](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-probably-a-lot-more-episodes-but-I%27m-currently-burdened-by-fever-delirium-and-i%27m-just-happy-that-this-reply-is-marginally-coherent) [and i do feel that the insistence that cas MUST retain his grace ignores the fact that it might not be what cas himself would even want](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-do-feel-that-the-insistence-that-cas-MUST-retain-his-grace-ignores-the-fact-that-it-might-not-be-what-cas-himself-would-even-want) [so we have both sides of the debate believing the other side doesn't care about what cas would choose for himself](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-we-have-both-sides-of-the-debate-believing-the-other-side-doesn%27t-care-about-what-cas-would-choose-for-himself) [when in reality all i want for cas is for him to be able to make that choice for himself...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/when-in-reality-all-i-want-for-cas-is-for-him-to-be-able-to-make-that-choice-for-himself...) [i just haven't seen anything in the narrative that would point to the fact that his eventual choice will be to remain an angel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-just-haven%27t-seen-anything-in-the-narrative-that-would-point-to-the-fact-that-his-eventual-choice-will-be-to-remain-an-angel) [and everything points to him eventually choosing to be human](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-everything-points-to-him-eventually-choosing-to-be-human) [or else what is the point of repeatedly asking him that question anyway you know?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-else-what-is-the-point-of-repeatedly-asking-him-that-question-anyway-you-know%3F) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [and grace is sorta the antithesis of that...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-grace-is-sorta-the-antithesis-of-that...)

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

#  [Power and Personhood](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166486329720/power-and-personhood)

[Oct 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166486329720/power-and-personhood)

48 notes

And the end of 8.08, their last recourse to help Fred Jones, who was losing himself to dementia despite his power still acting unabated and being used by evil people without his consent, was for Castiel to mojo away his psychokinetic powers. This was a traumatic decision for Fred, but in the end he not only felt it was his only choice, he accepted it, despite the fact that removing his power would also remove much of who he was as a person:

**SAM** : Fred. You good?  
 **FRED** : Now I’m good. In a month, year… [sighs] Nobody gets sharper with age. I’m gonna lose control again, and somebody’s gonna get hurt… again. [sighs] You got to make it stop.  
 **CASTIEL** : There might be a way. The procedure will be painful, and… when it’s over, I’m not sure how much of you will be left.  
 **FRED** : [takes a deep breath and then speaks decisively] Well, what are you waiting for?

He knew that he couldn’t keep control over his powers as his mind slipped away due to dementia, and without him present enough to keep his powers under control, others might be hurt by them again.

At the end of s8, we were shown a very different type of power excision, when Castiel’s grace was cut out by Metatron. Cas didn’t lose any of “himself.” Just the power. It was very different to what happened with Fred Jones. I don’t know what the difference here is between Fred’s human psychokinetic powers and Castiel’s angel grace, but I believe we were being shown something deliberately specific that Andrew Dabb (who wrote 8.08 as well as 13.01) might be exploring further now with Jack’s powers.

Jack said in 13.01 that his power feels like “me but not me.” Like it’s somehow connected to him, but not a part of who he is. Which is fascinating when thinking back to 12.19, and how “Kelly” flip-flopped on being terrified of Jack’s powers enough to drive her to kill herself to stop him being born, and then once that power resurrected her (and became her, in Jack’s own words from 13.01), that self-protective power seems to be ensuring its own survival, regardless of Jack Nougat Winchester’s input into the matter.

(and yes, post 12.19, “Kelly” goes in quote marks because she wasn’t entirely Kelly anymore.)

The little naked candy loving manbaby is one thing, and the power that acts without his full consent or control is another. Sort of like a far less self-aware version of Chuck– one aspect of God’s power in a man-shaped suit.

Sam put forth the potential “cure” for Jack to be born human could be to excise his grace with the needle Cas used on him in 9.11 to remove Gadreel’s grace. And it seems to operate on similar principles to how Cas’s grace was removed in 8.23, and how Cas removed Metatron’s grace in 10.17. It didn’t take anything away from them other than their power. They still had the same knowledge and personalities, their individuality, and everything else.

In 12.19, “Kelly” objected to even attempting to remove Jack’s grace:

**Sam** : Hey, Kelly. Kelly. Hey, wait, wait. Wait a second, look. We – we can’t imagine what you’ve been through, okay? But we promised we’d find another way, and we did. We found a better way. This can work.  
 **Kelly** : I’m going with Castiel.  
 **Sam** : No, Kelly, if you go with Cass, you die. Your baby dies.  
 **Kelly** : I go with you, you take away the thing that makes him special.  
 **Sam** : How does that matter if you’re both dead?  
 **Kelly** : That’s the only thing that matters.

The only thing that matters? Because his power is the only reason she was walking and talking. It’s officially taken the wheel (quite literally, as Kelly steals the Impala– with Cas included– moments later).

Jack’s power is him– but not him. It’s still a sort of foreign thing to him right now, and definitely something he has no conscious control over. It seems to react to his feelings (lashing out when he is afraid, going into full self-defense meltdown mode until Jack feels safe again). But without his power, would he still be “him?” And how much of HIM needs to reconcile and learn to control his own power before someone else tries to harness it for their own ends (like the corrupt doctor who was supposed to be caring for Fred Jones in 8.08 but instead used him and his power for his own gain despite causing several innocent people’s deaths).

  

 

[spn 8.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.08) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [spn 10.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.17) [spn 9.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.11) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse)


	17. Chapter 17

[Oct 31, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166993217925/but-i-have-a-question-chuck-brought-back-cas)

22 notes

**Anonymous asked: But I have a question.. Chuck brought back Cas several times (from the empty i guess, where else?) and he was still the same Cas, now why would this time be any diffetent?**

Well, we don’t  _know_  that Chuck ever brought Cas all the way back from the empty, either. We’ve seen him die in different ways, the first two times via Explosion by Archangel. It seemed a very definitive sort of death that wouldn’t be possible to come back from… and yet Cas was reconstituted almost immediately both times. It’s entirely possible that just just sorta magically snatched him out of the aethyr and yoinked him back into his body before his grace left this plane of existence.

We just don’t know.

I’ve written a number of posts on Castiel’s various deaths, and why  _this death in particular is different from all the others_.

(all those posts can be found on my blog by following the tags at the bottom of this post, fyi)

Cas was stabbed with an angel blade, did the whole light-blasting-out with included charred wingprints on the ground. He’s never died this way before.

And he’s never not ~come back to life~ for this long before. Even in s7 when the leviathans walked him into the lake and gooified him, we’re led to believe he wandered out of the lake whole (but without his memories) a short time later. Just because Dean couldn’t find him doesn’t mean he was alive.

And Dean DID pray to Chuck. He waited almost a whole day for Chuck to give him some sort of sign. He was also informed by an angel (yes, an antagonistic angel, but one he didn’t believe had any reason to lie to him…) that Cas was “all the way dead” this time, and not even Jack had the kind of power to bring him back from the specific way he’d been killed.

And without SEEING the mechanism for Cas’s return for himself this time (i.e. even having Cas’s opinion on how and why he was resurrected DESPITE Chuck not answering his prayer to fix it… I mean it’s already been about a week now, and Cas is still not back yet), there’s some cause to doubt the evidence of their eyes when Cas does suddenly return.

Not to mention the fact that they now know that Asmodeus can take on the appearance of other people for his own purposes. Not to mention shapeshifters and other things that may try to capitalize on the Winchesters’ losses… I mean, this is Supernatural.

Not to mention ALSO the fact that the last time Cas was returned to him, there were HEAVY conditions attached to his return (Naomi puppeting Cas from behind the big curtain). And Dean himself has worried that resurrections do tend to have these sorts of consequences attached. It was what he feared upon meeting Cas for the first time in 4.01, you know? That some Big Bad “rode him out of Hell” for their own purposes. It was his reality when Sam came back from the cage soulless, and then suffered the trauma of reuniting all the parts of himself in 6.22 and s7. It’s not a concern that’s coming from nowhere. All their past experience leads them to at least be a little cautious about these sorts of “miracles.”

From what I’ve heard, Dean will be wary at first, but it’s SAM who will have a lingering concern that Cas may not be entirely himself after this. And that difference of opinion on Cas’s trustworthiness or whatever going forward may be a source of some narrative tension among TFW. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they handle it. :)

[spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [i probably have more ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-probably-have-more-random-tags-addressing-all-these-subjects-but-that%27s-a-good-start)[random tags addressing all these subjects but that's a good start](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-probably-have-more-random-tags-addressing-all-these-subjects-but-that%27s-a-good-start)

 

[Nov 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167624981350/do-you-have-any-thoughts-about-why-cas-didnt-have)

75 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you have any thoughts about why Cas didn’t have the power to heal the security guard?**

He hasn’t been “fully powered” for a very long time. He can’t resurrect the dead anymore (I believe the last person he resurrected from “all the way dead” was Bobby in 5.22, but he also had a “special dispensation” having just been resurrected himself by Chuck at that point, and Bobby had only been dead for a few minutes.)

Since he had his original grace stolen in 8.23, and Metatron “used up” most of it in the angel fall spell, he’s been “weaker.” When he had the stolen grace during s9 and s10, he was barely able to even heal himself (Hannah had to heal him at one point in 10.02 (hello, Dabb).

Metatron told Cas and Hannah in 10.02:  “But there is some of your mojo left. Not a lot… But enough.“ Enough to keep him alive, enough to keep him from burning out with stolen grace, but not a lot. We’ve seen, since he got his own grace back in 10.18, that he’s definitely weaker power-wise than he was before.

I mean, he was weak enough, and bound into his human body enough, to give consent to be possessed by Lucifer. Pretty much every angel he’s encountered since late s10 has commented on the fact that he is weak, that he’s not actually an angel anymore. Even Amara commented on it, after eating Ambriel’s grace:

**Amara** : She’s right you know, you are expendable and weak. And why God took a special interest in you, I’ll never understand. My brother always did have horrible taste in men.  
 **Castiel** : Just do it.  
 **Amara** : Blue eyes, you’re not even worth the effort… and no offence, but you look a bit used up. Plus, I have a job for you.

He wasn’t even worth eating, so she used him as a post-it note in 11.10, written by… SURPRISE! Andrew Dabb.

And already in 11.10 we had him failing to heal Dean of “smiting sickness,” yet still “diagnosing” him with all sorts of prodding. *holds up finger and offers to take his temperature*

He is weak, “a bit used up.” He was able to heal Sam after the BMoL torture, but Sam wasn’t all the way dead and in need of resurrection. One episode earlier, in 12.01, he basically did the “forehead tap triage” on Mary after the car crash, specifically to DIAGNOSE her. He told Dean that she was unconscious but that there was “no serious damage,” but he didn’t heal her despite the fact that they were in an unknown and potentially antagonistic situation. He was working on it, though, when they were attacked, and Mary did come around on her own a minute later.

Recall how weak he was during 12.10 from healing Ishim, and how long it took him to heal himself from his own wounds… I believe there was a major debate about Cas’s weakened state after that episode, too. People were calling bullshit back then, and just like now I rolled my eyes, because  _he has been weakened since 8.23. Nothing has changed._

I suppose people just wanted to assume that Chuck would’ve “healed” his grace, but Cas never asked him to… or that the Empty would’ve resurrected him with some sort of boost in power level, but all it did was make sure he wasn’t naked when he bounced down to that bramble patch. 

Cas literally showed up with a new outfit– i.e. the surface-layer of him is new– but everything else? Same old same old.

Even when he healed Dean in 12.19 and 12.23, they made A Big Deal out of showing us that his grace glowed golden over Dean’s face, and NOT Cas’s own blueish glow, because he was still “tapped in” to JACK’s power at that point.

If the guard in 13.06 has just bumped his head and knocked himself out, I think Cas would’ve been able to heal him, but he was already dead. That was confirmed by Sam a moment later. I do think he was performing the same sort of “forehead tap triage” that he did on Mary in 12.01, diagnosing the problem rather than attempting a healing. Because he can’t heal the dead, and he hasn’t been able to for a very long time.

This is not a new or shocking development here.

ETA, because this is IMPORTANT: In 10.01 and 10.02, Cas was so weakened HE WAS SLEEPING. He required SLEEP the weaker his grace became. Which is why Jack’s statement in 13.06 that he doesn’t sleep much is so worrying… it means his own “humanity” is losing out to his mojo… Dabb has used this exact metaphor for just how “human” Cas was becoming (and even back during s5 it was used to show just how weak Cas’s mojo was, in a shot nearly identical to Jack sleeping in the Impala in 13.02). So the fact that Jack isn’t really sleeping anymore is A Concern. Interestingly, Cas also described what he’d been doing in the empty as “sleeping,” until Jack’s call woke him up, and now Cas is back to not sleeping at all because he’s alive again. Okay, as you were.

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [heck that's a tag i haven't used much since s10 but there you go](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-that%27s-a-tag-i-haven%27t-used-much-since-s10-but-there-you-go) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22)[spn 10.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.02) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Dec 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/168680736290/do-you-know-if-there-ever-was-a-fan-theory-that)

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you know if there ever was a fan theory that angel blades are actually angels? (Because of the whole “only an angel can kill another angel” thing) I know of headcanons that angel blades are parts of angels’ true forms or are made of parts of angels’ true forms, but I’ve never heard of anyone suggesting that angel blades are angels, that it’s a form (some?) angels have.**

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/168676066203/do-you-know-if-there-ever-was-a-fan-theory-that):

> I have never heard of that :P 
> 
> Although some people were wondering if the giant AU world spikes were angel true form (bits?) at one point or another rather than just really big swords. 
> 
> I’m pretty sure the phrase is a pithy version of “only an angel has the ability to manifest a weapon powerful enough to kill another angel” because there was so much conspiracy after 5x18 that it was another “true servant of heaven” thing that Dean could kill Zach and that the angel blades literally only worked in the hands of angels, but after a point it just became standard practice that anyone could have one if they could get a sword and use it to kill whatever they liked - tbh not sure when else between 5x18 and Carver era (and lol he WROTE 5x18 so is it all spite?) anyone who wasn’t an angel killed another angel. About the only example springing to mind is Sam *not* killing Cas in 6x22 when he stabs him :P Trouble is angels really stayed out of the way for several seasons so we don’t have a lot of data before we get to territory where it’s like lol what is canon anyway. I read that conspiracy on TV Tropes after 6x20 without anyone seeming to have a problem with it a year later.
> 
> Anyways I just perpetually have an issue with that phrase because it has made it on several collections of SPN plotholes or dropped storylines (?? really???) I’ve seen and all that, so out of eye rolling disbelief that people made it 5+ years thinking this was an error, I mentally add all the extra words in that line all the time and don’t ascribe it any mystical meaning :P

 

Oh gosh, yeah. It wasn’t just that he was able to stab and kill Zachariah, it was that he stared into Zach’s eyes as he burned out, and Dean’s eyes glowed (with reflected grace, but from what I gather, the conspiracy theory at the time that it was coming from within Dean…)

The theory that seems to hold up best throughout canon is what Lizbob suggested, that only an angel can manifest that blade that can kill another angel, and that it’s somehow personal to the angel who manifested it. Like in 12.10 when Cas picked up the blade in the arcade he knew just from holding it that it was not Benjamin’s blade. The question remains is was that because the blade is infused with the grace of the angel who made it or does it hold some sort of resonant signature that identifies its owner?

Or what happens if a different angel recovers the blade, will it take on that angel’s signature after a while? Or what happens after a human’s been using it for a while (like the Winchesters have, or like Lily Sunder did, or Asa Fox), or even a demon (like Crowley, or now Asmodeus’s demon goon squad in 13.07)?

Because the blades don’t seem to “wear out.” They still kill everything despite potentially having been used for years by humans or demons. Their power seems to be self-contained. Are they just fashioned out of something etherial that retains the power to harm angels (and other things), and forged into shape by an angel’s grace? Or are they literally a shard of an angel’s grace made manifest? I think that last theory is HIGHLY unlikely, or else angels that were killed, you’d think their blades would burn out the same way their wings do (as a literal extension of their grace made manifest).

I prefer to think of them as having been forged in grace, but not  _composed_  of grace.

And as for the giant angel blades in the AU… my theory is that they’re some sort of monument or decoration, and not literally dropped angel blades. I mean, drop a heavy weapon like that, what are the chances they’re gonna land buried that deep, pommel down, blade pointing straight up? Like… less than zero. If they were real, actual angel blades dropped in battle, they’d mostly have landed on their sides, maybe a few point-down in the ground. Unless somebody bothered to stand them all up and bury them ridiculously deep to point up at the heavens like that. And in an apocalypse war zone, I can’t imagine ANYONE bothering to do that, you know? What a ridiculous waste of effort. 

gah I could babble headcanons and theories on this nonsense all day.

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the war world](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-war-world)

 

[Jan 21, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169971629135/what-do-you-think-would-happen-if-jack-ate)

13 notes

**[astigmaticambition](https://astigmaticambition.tumblr.com/) asked: What do you think would happen if Jack 'ate' Lucifer's grace? Would he become super powerful? Can nephilim even do that, like a regular angel? (mostly I just want fandom to be gifted with "I'm gonna eat the devil")**

Ooh, I don’t even know if Jack would need to do that. He’s already got his own grace, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen any being already in possession of their own grace “consuming” anyone else’s grace that way.

Jack is half human and half archangel, so in theory half of him already IS Lucifer’s grace (as Lucifer’s biological– and is “biological” even the right word? whatever we get it– offspring).

He’s also been demonstrated to have potential powers that even GOD doesn’t have. He tapped Cas awake in the Empty, and not even Chuck (aka, Jack’s grandpa, and previously the Supreme Powerful Being of the universe, especially after reunifying with Amara) could’ve done that.

Irrespective of his conscious control, his BIRTH released so much power that it tore a hole in REALITY ITSELF into an alternate universe. And the ripple effects of that are still tearing holes in space/time. He’s only begun to understand how his power works and what he might be capable of. He went from not even understanding teleporting (and walking out into the hall and inadvertently locking himself out of their motel room), to accidentally zapping himself outside, to being able to CHOOSE to zap himself around, you know? It’s a process. He already HAS unimaginable powers at his disposal, it’s just a matter of him “growing into his power” (as was described of nephilim in 12.10) and learning to use them.

I think Lucifer’s relative power level as an archangel is kinda… negligible compared to Jack’s inherent power level.

But hey, as a garbage disposal technique, “I’m gonna eat the devil” certainly works for me. :P

[jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[astigmaticambition](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/astigmaticambition)

 

 

 

[Feb 1, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170402769255/has-power-upgrade-ever-been-a-good-thing-for-any)

86 notes

**Anonymous asked: Has power upgrade ever been a good thing for any character in this show? I’m a bit worried for Rowena. I guess “restoring original strength” may be a little different but still... considering the show’s track record with Sam’s demon blood drinking, Dean’s MoC, Cass’s Purgatory souls... even Cass’s restoration of his grace wasn’t portrayed in a completely positive way and is keeping him from the human experiences he enjoyed...**

Yeah, I mean, this is definitely different than Sam’s demon-blood drinking. The Grand Coven had apparently chained Rowena’s natural powers a long time ago (and when I first saw those bonds, heck it reminded me a lot of what textbook illustrations of some types of angels– specifically Thrones).

So was the spell that bound her somehow “angelic” in origin, or is HER innate power somehow “angelic” in origin? Or are we about to learn some very new things about Natural Witches?

No matter how it plays out, I am intrigued!

And yeah, as for power upgrades, they always seem to come with a major price.

Sam’s demon blood powers and Dean taking the MoC and Cas taking on the Purgatory souls– I think the down side is pretty blatantly obvious with those three.

But even Cas getting back to whatever power level he’s at currently (which we know is only a fraction of his original grace)…

I mean, even after s5 when Cas was “rebuilt” after Lucifer exploded him, and he told Dean he was “new and improved.” And then had to flap off to play New Sheriff In Heaven, and that went FANTASTIC, right?

Oh, right… it led to him desperate to grab even MORE power to save the world again single-handedly…

Which went swimmingly! (editors note: it did not go swimmingly unless drowning in lakes filled with leviathan goo is now considered “swimming”)

Back to the point… yeah, Cas felt obligated to “power up” by “cannibalizing” Theo’s grace in 9.09. And he felt TERRIBLE after that, but it was about duty doing the right thing (and giving Dean the warning that the angel who’d helped him save Sam was NOT Ezekiel). I mean, he’d been ready to die up to that point…

Then when the stolen grace nearly killed him, Crowley topped him off involuntarily with MORE stolen grace from another “cannibalized” angel…

(and that’s CAS’S word for it… from this episode, when Lucifer asked for some of his grace– he knows first-hand how awful it is)

Even getting his OWN grace back was done as a desperate move to stop METATRON from taking it from him. I mean… It’s not like he had a CHOICE in any of it.

So yeah, power-ups in SPN always deserve to be put under a microscope. They’re not typically Good Things.

[spn 13.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.12) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [rowena](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rowena)[basically I am now also concerned for rowena](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/basically-I-am-now-also-concerned-for-rowena) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170423767115/so-what-do-you-think-happened-to-lucifer-he-cant)

63 notes

**Anonymous asked: So what do you think happened to Lucifer? He can't be dead right? Cuz a normal angel blade can't kill him... Unless there are different rules when he's that weak. I feel like if he didn't die, he's gonna turn the tables on Cas in the next episode**

Yeah, Cas certainly did give it the old college try…

Maybe he hoped that Luci being weaker this time around would work to his advantage? But from the like one second snippet from the 13.13 promo, it looked like Cas was standing there outside the “palace” having been left there after Luci flapped off (I believe he STILL has his wings, even after having a portion of his grace excised, especially now that he’s had some time to recover).

One of the snippets from the THEN segment at the beginning of 13.12 was that scene from 13.07:

**CASTIEL** : Well, you would seem to be the weak link on this team.  
 **LUCIFER** : Okay, that hurt. That… was unnecessary. I’m gonna let it go. Yes, my grace is a little bit depleted, but give me time, man. 

GIVE ME TIME. Meaning he was confident his grace would eventually “recharge” or whatever grace does, but that he just needed more time. Which in 13.07 he was convinced he didn’t have, and that Michael would find a way through the portal sooner than later.

Interesting that Rowena said it also took her a long time to recover from the way Lucifer killed her way back in 12.23, as well. But she did recover. And by the end of the episode she’d gotten her hands on the spell that would “unbind” the rest of her powers…

Several times during 13.12, Lucifer also asked Cas to give him a “recharge” with his own grace, much the same that Rowena had been seeking magical “recharges” through outside power sources for years since a chunk of her own power had been locked away from her.

In the end, Luci and Cas BOTH discovered that Luci was able to tap into his power more quickly by tapping into his ANGER.

Which is interesting for a lot of reasons, not least of which Luci was likely to be pretty pissed off that Cas would stab him AGAIN.

(that clip from the THEN segment I referenced above? Was from the same conversation where this exchange took place:

**CASTIEL** : You’ll forgive me if I’m a little on edge. The last time we were together, you killed me.  
 **LUCIFER** : Well, last time we were together, you stabbed me.  
 **CASTIEL** (rolling his eyes and sighing): I’m sorry. 

I find it highly amusing that Cas stabbed him again.)

But yeah, Luci’s definitely still not dead. Bummer. I really enjoyed the 20 minutes or so when I could at least dream about it being true. :P

[spn 13.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.12) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [rowena](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rowena) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 3, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170464528670/do-you-think-theres-a-connection-between-jacks)

77 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think there’s a connection between Jack’s power bursting when he’s scared and Lucifer’s power getting stronger when he’s mad? I mean in both cases the trigger or catalyst was strong emotions. I guess it’s not an uncommon thing we see in shows or movies but I need a reminder of whether this has been a pattern before on SPN? Are there deeper meanings in this pattern? And is human souls being powerful related to/demonstrated by/because of the vast emotions that humans constantly experience?**

Ooh, now this is interesting, because just sitting here staring at your message for a few minutes, yeah there does seem to be a pattern of this in Supernatural.

I mean, just think back to the end of 13.09. Jack and Kaia had “melded” their powers to open a rift, but what eventually tore open the rift to the Bad Place, hurled Jack into the War World, Sam and Dean to the Bad Place, and Kaia a long distance away to a desolate roadside, and nuked six angels and melted their blades in the process was Kaia’s purely emotional reaction to the hooded figure (that we later learn was Darth Kaia).

Kaia screamed in terror and the power she and Jack had raised together went out of control.

In a way it’s sort of an inverse of what Dean was struggling with in s10 with the Mark of Cain, where he was fighting what the Mark was pushing him to become by being as chill as possible, you know? Dude was listening to freaking self-help meditation tapes. But when the Mark took control, Dean’s emotions (particularly rage) exploded out of him, and he essentially blacked out (see 10.09 at the slaughter at Randy’s house).

And it’s been Jack’s struggle most of the season, as well. He hasn’t felt “connected” to his own powers, like he told Sam in 13.01, when he was trying to understand why his power seemed to lash out at random:

**SAM** : Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy, easy, easy, easy. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.  
 **JACK** : You already hurt me.  
 **SAM** : Yes, I did. I-I’m sorry. I was just trying to slow you down. You– you were, uh… Are you all right?  
 **JACK** : I don’t, I… I was scared, and when I get scared, things happen. I…I can’t stop them.  
[As he talks, Jack visibly calms down, the glow fades from his eyes]  
 **SAM** : Why were you scared?  
 **JACK** : Because of the voices. (Whispers) They were so…loud, so…angry.  
 **SAM** : Do you hear them right now?  
[Jack considers this, and gradually stands up, much more relaxed]  
 **JACK** : No.  
 **SAM** : Good. (Chuckles) Good. (Exhales sharply)  
[Sam is also visibly relieved, as Jack sits on the cot opposite him and folds his legs up criss cross applesauce style]  
 **JACK** : I’m sorry.  
 **SAM** (confused): What?  
 **JACK** : Will you tell them that I’m sorry?  
 **SAM** : Yeah. Sure. Of course. (long pause) Jack… how are you, um… How are we… talking right now? I mean, you’re– you’re not even a day old. How do you speak English?  
 **JACK** : My mother taught me.  
 **SAM** : So you talked to her.  
 **JACK** : I was her.  
 **SAM** : Okay. And, um… your powers. Did she teach you those, too, or…  
[Jack stands up and walks to the nearest wall, feeling the concrete blocks with his hands, tracing the seams between them as he talks]  
 **JACK** : No, I… I don’t know why these things happen. It’s like I’m me, but… not me.

(yes I know that is a very long snippet to post as a reference quote, but since the whole transcript seems broken on the superwiki I figured I should post it here since you can’t click over and read the whole scene there)

This is pretty much EXACTLY what Jack has been dealing with since the moment he was born. Everything from the rift to the War World spontaneously opening when Kelly began having contractions before he was born, to reacting to his own fear and pain by his powers acting defensively without any understanding from him. This was a HUGE meta topic at the beginning of s13.

So the fact that escalating emotions seemed to charge up Lucifer’s batteries in 13.12 is thematically on point. In the same episode, Rowena cut her own “voice” free with a burst of her own power, as well.

Interesting theme, considering how way back in s4 Cas (like the rest of the angels) believed that human emotions were a weakness, when here they’re being demonstrated as a definite strength (or at least a potential source of strength).

There’s overtones of Lily Sunder, using her human strength to best the power of angels so disdainful of “human weakness.” And the one angel who’s seemed to gain the most strength from his own emotions in all of this is Castiel. He might not be flinging rage in bursts of power, but in his own way he’s harnessing his human emotions with skill and purpose, in ways Lucifer clearly can’t.

I do find it interesting, considering the current state of Lucifer’s depleted grace, that it’s only in this state that’s slightly closer to humanity and slightly less angelic that’s given him the power to wield his emotions as weapons this way. And that Cas, who’s been completely human with no grace to tap into at all is still choosing to wield his understanding of human emotions more than he’s relying on his angelic powers. He understands the limitations of his own powers, and has essentially weaponized his vocabulary instead.

I actually love this.

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [spn 13.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.12) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) 


	18. Chapter 18

[Feb 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170688070925/from-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas)

80 notes

**Anonymous asked: From your vast knowledge of canon, was Anna's angelic name Anael, or is that fanon? If it's canon, would that make Danneel's angel Aniel or something similar?**

That’s fanon.

“Anna” was the name her human parents gave her. We never did learn if she had an “angel name” different from that in canon. All the angels just went on calling her by her human name.

From the [Superwiki](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DAnna_Milton&t=M2RkYTMyYzUzMzY2NTg5M2VlZDA4MmJiODBjZmUzYzQ2NWU5OTUzZSxSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1):

  * [Julie McNiven](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DJulie_McNiven&t=MjZkZGMyZmNlMzNlNWYyYTAwZDMzZmU2N2M5YjhjNWQ0YzdhN2M4MyxSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1) suggested that Anna’s full angelic name was actually [Anael](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHaniel&t=YmI0NWEzNmRiNDliNDJjODkyY2Q4OGI3NzcxOTJjMmRkM2RlMmZmZSxSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1), who is an angel in real-world lore,[[7]](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DAnna_Milton%23cite_note-7&t=N2FhNTIxZTUyYWJmOWVlNmU0MzBhNmEyMTdiMzhiZGI0NTEyZGVlZixSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1) which would make “Anna” a nickname for her by other angels, similar to “[Cas](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DCas&t=ZmQ3ZGYxYjY2YWU0ZGUyODE3MDkzM2JhZTQzMTVjYTU5ZGEyOWY3OCxSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1)” for [Castiel](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DCastiel&t=Yzg2OWE0MmFlMDAyZTEyNWE4Zjc2MjI2ZGU2ODZiZjhlNjRiNDcyZSxSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1). Fans have speculated that Anna was one of the angels in lore with “Ana-” names ever since the reveal of her true nature; Anael just so happened to be the most common pick. This is dispelled with the appearance of Danneel Ackles character [Anael](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DAnael&t=MTI0MzViNzg5NDNkZjBhNDMxNzRiNmE0NjI2MGQ5NDZmZjE4N2NmYixSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1) in [13.13 Devil’s Bargain](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D13.13_Devil%2527s_Bargain&t=Y2RlZDljYzUxMWYyODYyZDVkODFmNjI0ZGIwZTFiZjBkNmQ4NTBjYSxSTGFHVUUzUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170688070925%2Ffrom-your-vast-knowledge-of-canon-was-annas&m=1).



I am thoroughly amused by the fact they chose names associated with TWO women from the past that Dean had tentative romantic interest in– Jo Harvelle and Anna Milton– for the character of Sister Jo.

And after hearing Anael’s role in Heaven as a button-pushing functionary, and knowing Anna Milton’s role as an angel was as the leader of the entire Garrison, I don’t think we’re supposed to assume they’re even remotely similar.

Except… Like Anna (and like Hannah, to bring up yet another angel with a very similar sounding name), Sister Jo is fascinated by human emotions. Her reaction to humanity seems to fall somewhere between Anna’s desire to experience it fully for herself, and Hannah’s completely hands-off All Angels Back To Heaven Now belief that human emotions aren’t for angels.

Like the angels Daniel and Adina from s10, that Hannah recruited Cas to help her return them to heaven, Anael discovered “freedom” on Earth. And yeah, when her alternative was to return to pushing that soul-counting button for the rest of eternity I can see why she’d rather find some way– PRETTY MUCH ANY WAY– to just stay on Earth.

But unlike Anna, she didn’t want to experience humanity (except in the context of occasional drug use… I mean, the way she talked about having siphoned off just enough grace that she could feel some human feelings and yet never actually be subjected to them as if they were still mostly out of reach for her, sounds an awful lot like someone describing being high, you know? Or maybe you don’t, but whatever… she and Luci even had very different opinions on what the experience was like for each of them based on their very different life experiences.)

Point is, neither Luci nor Anael actually WANT to be fully Human. Anael was academically interested in the experience, but Luci was once again disdainful. No matter how close he got to humanity, he never let those human feelings touch him in the least.

But I find it interesting in that each of these angels have arrived at near-Humanity in different ways:

  * Anna voluntarily cut out her grace, fell, and was BORN human into her own human body. She wanted to fully experience human emotions, and when she reclaimed her grace (at least until she was captured and returned to Heaven for reprogramming) she retained her opinions and understanding of human feelings. She was fundamentally different from pretty much every other angel with regard to her grace and her “vessel,” because IT WAS NOT A VESSEL, it was her OWN HUMAN BODY.
  * Hannah’s experience was from the standard Angel-Possesses-Willing-Human-Vessel standpoint, and as such she always felt that the human emotions she experienced from Caroline were a sort of foreign thing to her. Despite being curious about human emotions and experiences, Hannah felt the depth of Caroline’s anguish over how Hannah hurt her husband, and was humbled by those feelings. Instead of inspiring Hannah to want to experience more human feelings for herself, she decided that those “human things” were simply not for angels, and she chose to return to Heaven and leave humanity to itself. (yes she took another human vessel when she needed to speak to Cas face to face, but it’s implied that it was only for practical purposes and that she had no personal desire to experience or experiment with human feelings again)
  * Anael was relieved to no longer have to play Button Pusher in Heaven. I guess sitting there bored for most of history of the universe gave her plenty of time to think about how she’d do things better/differently in Heaven, if only any of those angels would’ve listened to her… She’s got an agenda, and Big Ideas for how to make Heaven work the way she thinks it ought to. But in lieu of actually having the power or drive to make it happen in Heaven, she’s founded her own little Crossroads Empire on Earth. Even the way she got her vessel– by “making a deal” with a distraught woman who was  _willing to trade her life for her husband’s_ , is kinda… academically understanding the human emotions involved, and yet dispassionate enough to selfishly claim her vessel without a second thought, you know? And then after her conversation with Lucifer about what it’s like to experience human emotions when her grace is depleted, she mentions “hope, and even love” as if she’s at least had a chance to skim across the surface of those feelings but that she’s never felt compelled to fully immerse herself in them. They’re more… academically interesting to her. She’s proven to be VERY good at manipulating those human feelings to her own personal benefit, behaving very much like a Crossroads Demon, exchanging her own power for cash. She deliberately sided with Lucifer, because she sees him as her key to actually return to Heaven without being immediately sent back to her button-pushing post. She’s literally got Luci right where she wants him. Like Rowena influencing Crowley back in s10, like Ruby influencing Sam back in s4 (only via Luci’s addiction to her grace power-ups instead of demon blood… because honestly we know how cannibalized grace works– or doesn’t work– long-term…)
  * I’m throwing Castiel onto this list too, because he’s the Most Human of all the angels, and how he came to be that way is absolutely unique among angels. The entirety of his grace was removed while he was alone in his vessel, and he had no need to be “born” into his own vessel because he already HAD his own vessel. All of his angelic memories were intact, and the only thing removed was his grace. He got to live completely as a human in his own body in a way that Anna didn’t even get to experience (since she’d lost her memories for most of her human lifetime). Cas was then driven by desperation to “cannibalize” grace that first time, and it slowly poisoned him until Crowley topped off his tank. He was then dying again when Metatron told him about that tiny shard of his original grace that would at least stop him from dying from the stolen grace. He’s struggled with the fact that the vast majority of his original grace was destroyed in the angel fall spell, and has never seemed to “recharge” back to its original level. Which brings me to the seeming wtf-ery of Lucifer’s “recharging grace.”
  * Because the way Lucifer’s grace was vampirized in 13.07 was entirely unlike the way Cas’s was completely excised in 8.23. At the baseline here, Cas is no longer like other angels. Unlike Lucifer and Anael here, Cas WAS completely human within his own body for a time. Luci and Anael have stopped short of going all the way human. Unless we get some other sort of explanation for that, I’m going with that explanation for now.



At this point I’m gonna skim through my inbox a bit, because I think I yammered enough here to have at least touched on some of my other anons… like this one:

> idk if someone else already mentioned this, but did it seem to anyone else like they were mirroring Aneal with Ruby? Like angel to demon but you never know if you can trust them and they’re a smooth talking strategist sneakily angling to put a certain someone on a throne…

Yuuuuppp. :P

> So as long as an angel has a bit of their grace left, they can recharge it. Why were Cas’ powers muted for so long, then? His grace should have healed.

As I kinda tried to say above, the implication for years has been that Cas really isn’t like other angels anymore. I think he’s really not like other angels anymore. Even with his own original grace restored, Cas is essentially human now with a grace power-up. It’s like he can get back to that baseline he achieved by having his own grace restored in 10.18, but can only get back to that depowered state, you know? (similar to how he was when he was slowly losing his powers back in s5, because he was “disconnected from Heaven”. It’s as if he’s truly chosen his side, and like he said in 12.19, he’s officially picked the Winchesters.)

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [sister jo](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sister-jo) [anael](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anael) [anna milton](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anna-milton) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	19. Chapter 19

[Feb 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171044030930/hi-i-didnt-catch-that-angels-have-no-emotions)

56 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! I didn’t catch that “angels have no emotions” line from the last episode. They obviosly did. Gabriel left Heaven cause he couldn’t see his brothers’ fighting and he was really sad about it. Ishim had some feelings towards human. Atropos and Zakharia had very strong emotions about how their work went wrong(angry, irritation). Lucifer wanted tp please his father so much that he took the Mark. I mean, emm, why aren’t these emotions taken into account?**

Um…hi. This has been in my inbox for well over a week now, and I’m sorry it’s taken so long to reply, but I have a feeling you’re not really going to like my answer much… 

The show has a very  _very_  long history of demonstrating angels’ feelings as something not particularly akin to Human feelings. You seem to have cherry-picked the handful of examples that would seem to contradict the statement that angels don’t have emotions, so I’ll at least attempt to address the ones you mentioned specifically before demonstrating the FAR larger overall pattern of angels vs. human emotions.

Gabriel left Heaven because he  _could_. He didn’t want to be in the middle of Michael’s staunch GOD MUST BE OBEYED ABOVE EVERYTHING line and Lucifer’s retort of BUT HUMANS SUUUUUUCK, followed by not only his refusal to follow God’s orders about loving humans above him, but by his active corruption of humanity. Luci did run out and make the first demons out of humans… Wanting to escape the constant bickering and the pressure to pick a side doesn’t necessarily qualify as an  _emotion_  per se.

The fact that Gabriel actually popped down to Earth undercover as Loki, where he used humanity as his personal plaything and distraction, amusing himself by dishing out “just desserts” in the form of death or maiming or torture to humans he doesn’t find up to snuff. All the while indulging in human things himself,  _but most of it is illusions he conjures up and not actually real human interaction._  In 2.15, the women he’s with are illusory, the food is illusory. Hell, the  _dog_  is probably an illusion. It’s right there on the tin. Gabriel is  _playing_  at being human, but everything he does just maintains that illusion– both that he’s just a human and that he’s just a trickster god and not an Archangel on the run from his Heavenly duty.

(incidentally very much like Anael in 13.13)

Ishim is a very interesting choice of an example here, because 12.10 showed us nothing if not how  _wrong_  Ishim was. In fact, I’m surprised you chose him over Benjamin to support your “angels feel emotions” claim. I could argue that Benjamin felt a true love for his vessel, protected her through centuries, and we know that she was “powerfully devoted” to him. Benjamin was the compare/contrast exemplar in that episode between what a good, mutual, healthy love between an angel and their human vessel was like, and what an obsessive and one-sided “ownership” and unhealthy (and complete misunderstanding of human love) relationship that Ishim wanted to have with Lily. He said he loved her, but like Anael and her vessel situation, it was a manipulation. He felt Lily  _owed_  him something, he  _lied_ about it, and sought revenge against her for “rejecting” him.

He was convinced that humans and their terrible emotions were poisonous to angels, because he felt Lily had poisoned him. Wrath is something commonly  attributed to warrior angels, you know? Angels are good at wrath. That doesn’t make them capable of  _human_  emotions.

(and the obsessive and toxic “love” that Ishim felt for Lily was more along the lines of the obsessive “love” the qareen fed off of in 11.13, as well. And that was a creature with no heart of its own. Whatever Ishim felt for Lily, it wasn’t a pure human love. It was literally heartless.)

Atropos was pissed that after the apocalypse failed, she was out of a job. Imagine doing something for billions of years, being really good at it, and then suddenly being told your position was no longer required? And that basically you can just go suck eggs over it? Being angry that she’d been downsized doesn’t make her feelings about that “human.” She just wanted to keep doing her job, she wanted the universe to continue making sense. She wanted Fate restored to the natural order.

Zachariah was a pissbaby middle manager who kinda sucked at his job. And he was SUPREMELY angry that the little fleshbags kept besting him. He was angry when Dean wouldn’t just roll over and do as he was told like the good little mudmonkey he was supposed to be. Again, wrath and manipulation in the line of duty to Heaven and Divine Prophecy doesn’t qualify as “human emotion.” And I think Zachariah would be personally disgusted if you suggested this to his (already pre-stabbed for our convenience) face. :P

We already know that angels are suckers for taking orders. I mean, it’s hardwired into their programming. Literally. Take it from Crowley in 8.10, and what he dug out of Samandriel’s noggin once he hit the “angel operating system”:

**CROWLEY** : That was tablet talk. Protecting the Word of God seems to be hardwired into these dingbats. 

Lucifer (and Michael, and Gabriel, and Raphael) was no different. He considered taking the Mark an HONOR. God asked HIM to bear it, because he was deemed worthy or whatever. I don’t think he was eagerly trying to please God the way a human child would try to please a parent here. I think he was literally following his programming to serve and obey and love God. I don’t think he had a  _choice_.

And I fail to see how that has anything to do with human emotions anyway. Because we know from 13.13 that Lucifer doesn’t enjoy having to  _feel_  “human” things:

**LUCIFER** : Yeah, I had that experience. I didn’t like it. Hunger, cold, loneliness. I don’t know how they keep going.   
 **SISTER JO** : I do. When I’m in that place, I can see how there’d be pain but there’s also hope, love even. Angels can only imagine.

Lucifer was OFFERED a hand of friendship (or at least of camaraderie and understanding) by one human,  _and he rejected it_. He was told point-blank that people weren’t willing to help him because his “vibe” was “off putting.” He’s not even interested in coming to a better understanding of humans, even when it could be of personal advantage to do so. He was literally begging for handouts, was told how he could improve his chances of actually getting help from other humans, and rejected the advice with both hands. I mean… he doesn’t want anything to do with human  _anything_ , even when he’s suffering as a result of that rejection.

But that’s your examples down. Let’s move on to the more conclusive examples. And really, let’s start with an angel we’d all kinda-sorta headcanoned might be Anael for the last 10 years– Anna Milton.

(and honestly, her reasoning for falling in 4.10 looks remarkably like Cas’s description of humanity to Hannah in 10.01, and Sister Jo’s description of Humanity in 13.13 quoted above there)

**Dean:** That’s another question. Why would you fall? Why would you want to be one of us?   
 **Anna:**  You don’t mean that.  
 **Dean:**  I don’t? A bunch of – of miserable bastards… Eating, crapping, confused, afraid.  
 **Anna:**  I don’t know. There’s loyalty… forgiveness… love.  
 **Dean:**  Pain.  
 **Anna:**  Chocolate cake.  
 **Dean:**  Guilt.  
 **Anna:**  Sex.  
 **Dean:** Yeah, you got me there.

I mean, even if you ignore the joking at the end with chocolate cake and sex, those first three examples of “loyalty, faith, and love” sound on the surface like things angels would be able to experience, right? I mean we know “loyalty” is hardwired into them, and if they ever waver in their duty they get sent to Angel Boot Camp for reprogramming. Same with faith, which Anna herself even quotes to Dean about in a  _negative_  tone with regard to her existence as an angel before she fell:

**ANNA** : I mean it. Every emotion, Dean, even the bad ones… It’s why I fell. It’s why… why I’d give anything not to have to go back. Anything.  
 **DEAN** : Feelings are overrated, if you ask me.  
 **ANNA** : Beats being an angel.  
 **DEAN** : How’s that possible? You guys are powerful and perfect. You don’t doubt yourselves or God or anything.  
 **ANNA** : Perfect… Like a marble statue. Cold… no choice… only obedience. Dean, do you know how many angels have actually seen God? Seen his face?  
 **DEAN** : All of you?  
 **ANNA** : Four angels. Four. And I’m not one of them.  
 **DEAN** : That’s it? Well, then how do you even know that there is a God?  
 **ANNA** : We have to take it on faith… Which we’re killed if we don’t have.

So clearly there’s a difference in the quality of human faith versus angelic faith. Can you identify the key word that divides the human from the angelic here?

CHOICE.

Angels have none. Only obedience. They’re told to love humans, so they do. They’re told to perform their duty, so they do. They’re told to have faith in God, so they do. Anna wanted to feel what humans could, and what angels could NOT. By CHOICE.

It was worth cutting out her own grace, which she described as akin to carving out her own kidney with a spoon. I mean. That’s kind of an extreme thing to do if angels were actually capable of feeling human things without going through that sort of suffering, you know? I’m really rather insulted on her behalf that Zachariah’s pissiness or Ishim’s selfish obsession can be seen as anything comparable to what Anna Milton felt  _as a human_.

Then we had Balthazar… who sort of pulled the same sort of escape maneuver that Gabriel did. He wasn’t particularly interested in humanity for the sake of humanity, but as something more interesting to do than get wrapped up and die for Heaven’s civil war:

**BALTHAZAR** : Because I could! What? What? I me– you’re the one who made it possible. The footsteps I’m following – they’re yours. What you did, stopping the big plan, the prize fight? You did more than rebel. You tore up the whole script and burned the pages for all of us. [ Laughs. ] It’s a new era. No rules, no destiny. Just utter and complete freedom.  
 **CASTIEL** : And this is what you do with it?  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Hey, screw it, right? I mean, dad’s not coming back. You might as well blow coke and jump on the bed. You proved to me we could do anything, so I’m trying everything. What difference does it make?  
 **CASTIEL** : Of course it makes a diff– it’s civil war up there!  
 **BALTHAZAR** : I know.  
 **CASTIEL** : If we can beat Raphael, we can end this! Just give me the weapons.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : [ Laughs. ] Do you know what’s funny about you? You actually believe that you can stop the fighting. It will never stop. My advice – grab something valuable and fake your own death.

It wasn’t some grand passion for the glory of humanity, but escapism. Borderline nihilism. Nothing mattered anymore, so why not “bang a few gongs before the lights go out.” Or “I suggest we imbibe copious quantities of alcohol… Just wait for the inevitable blast wave.” Thanks, Bukowski.

And if that’s not enough, we have the evidence of Cas himself, and a tidy little comparison between demonic lack of feelings with angelic lack of feelings. Please see this cut scene from 9.10:

<https://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/post/103295123283/elizabethrobertajones-elizabethrobertajones>

combined with Cas’s comments to Sam in 10.03 while they’re attempting to cure Dean of being a demon:

**SAM** : What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human.  
 **CASTIEL** :: Well… I see his point. You know, only humans can feel real joy, but… also such profound pain. This is easier.

Cas isn’t just talking to hear his own voice there. He’s speaking from experience. He understands that profound pain, having experienced that humanity for himself. It’s why he says at the end of 9.23 when he believes Dean is dead that he just wants to be an angel (despite the fact his stolen grace is burning out)… because he won’t have to feel that profound pain like a human would. There’s that good ol’ angelic nihilism again!

Now that we’re mired in early s10, let’s bring back the angels who’d wanted to remain on Earth during Hannah’s roundup. Daniel and Adina wanted to experience Earth and all the amazing wonders it had to offer. Sure, they were interested in some human things… camping, fishing, exploring nature. But how much of  _humanity_  were they exploring out in the wilderness? 

**HANNAH** : Perhaps it is you who has failed to get the message? All of us serve at heaven’s command.  
 **DANIEL** : I suppose. But that was before the fall, wasn’t it?  
 **HANNAH** : You are an angel, once and forever.  
 **DANIEL** : Dropped unwillingly…Unknowingly…Into a strange land, a land that, as it turns out, celebrates the free, the individual. For the first time in thousands of years, I have choices. And with each choice… I begin to discover who I really am.  
 **HANNAH** : This is nonsense.  
 **DANIEL** : Because they don’t teach you this in heaven? Perhaps they should. Then you would understand why it’s worth fighting for.

But Cas has known all along what they’re fighting for. What Daniel and Adina were only beginning to discover for themselves. Freedom and choice, and what that could lead to:

**Castiel:** Perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long. There is seemingly nothing but chaos, not all bad comes from it. Art, hope, love, dreams.  
 **Hannah:**  But those are human things.  
 **Castiel:** Yes

Those are still “human things.” Daniel and Adina may have been learning ABOUT them, but not actively  _living_  them as angels. I do hope this makes sense, because I said earlier that Anna’s “faith” as an angel and her faith as a human were different things because humanity gave her the  _choice_ , but now here Daniel and Adina are glorying in their newfound ability to choose for themselves, but it’s still not quite human…

There’s a difference between angels running around on Earth  _playing human_  (like Balthazar and Gabriel did in a rather self-indulgently “blow coke and jump on the bed” fashion, and now Daniel and Adina are doing in a more appreciative fashion), and actually  _being_  and  _feeling_  human. As Hannah proved in 10.07 with her ultimate choice on the matter of angels and humanity:

**Hannah:** I’m sorry Castiel, I’m not going with you. I’m done. It’s hard letting go – the story, the mission. What of the humans, whose lives we sacrifice in the name of that mission, what of them? We always said the humans were our original mission; maybe it’s time, Castiel, time to put them first.  
 **Castiel:**  Where is all this coming from?  
 **Hannah:** Being on Earth, working with you. I felt things, human things – passions, hungers. To shower, feel water on my skin, to get closer to you. But all of that was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw him. Her husband, his anger and his grief. Caroline was inside me screaming out for him, for her life back. These feelings they aren’t for me, for us. They belong to her. I know it’s time to step aside… Goodbye Castiel.

To her, a “human feeling” was the desire to feel water on her skin in the shower, or to “get closer” to Cas. All of which was revealed as a sham in comparison to  _actual_  human feelings she felt second-hand through Caroline. I honestly don’t think there’s a more blatantly clear way to state that whatever angels are capable of feeling has  _nothing_  on what humans can feel.

We also have a very clear understanding of how CAS HIMSELF knows what it’s like to feel human, in the immediate aftermath of stealing Theo’s grace, when he is literally no longer capable of feeling those human things, in 9.11:

**CASTIEL** : When I was human, you know, I had to eat constantly. It was kind of annoying.  
 **SAM** : Yeah, a lot of human things are pretty annoying.  
 **CASTIEL** : But…I enjoyed the taste of food – particularly peanut butter with grape jelly, not jam. Jam I found unsettling.  
 **SAM** : So, what? Now you can’t taste PB and J?  
 **CASTIEL** : No, I-I taste every molecule.  
 **SAM** : Not the sum of its parts, huh?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s overwhelming. It’s disgusting. [looks longingly at the sandwich] I miss you, PB and J.

He knows exactly what he’s missing now, and he’s literally longing for what he’s lost now that he has grace again.

**CASTIEL** : Sam, I want Gadreel to pay as much as you do. But nothing is worth losing you. You know, being human, it didn’t just change my view of food. It changed my view of you. I mean, I can relate now to how you feel.  
 **SAM** : What are you talking about?  
 **CASTIEL** : The only person who has screwed things up more consistently than you…is me. And now I know what that guilt feels like. And I know what it… I know what it means to feel sorry, Sam. I am sorry.  
 **SAM** : I know.  
 **CASTIEL** : You know, old me – I would’ve have just kept going. I would’ve jammed that needle in deeper until you died because the ends always justified the means. But what I went though – Well, that PB and J taught me that angels can change, so…who knows? Maybe Winchesters can, too.

Cas DIRECTLY CREDITS his experience as a human– with human feelings– for changing him here. And Sam admits Cas was right in the end, too.

I mean… this has literally been Cas’s personal journey of self-discovery since s4 when he was compared to Anna (an angel who personally understood humanity!) and contrasted to Uriel (an angel who detested humanity completely!). Cas has experienced the frustration of attempting to teach poetry to fish… er… free will to angels. That was sort of the point of s6.

At this point I’ve been typing for a few hours, and despite the fact that there’s a lot more I could say on the subject, I feel sort of overwhelmed with the abundance of consistency in the themes the show has presented us with here. I’ll happily go on some more about it if anyone feels this post is lacking somehow.

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn 2.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.15) [spn 5.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.08) [spn 5.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.19) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 11.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.13) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [spn 8.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.10)[spn 4.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.10) [spn 6.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.03) [spn 5.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.04) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [spn 9.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.11) [spn 10.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.07) [spn 10.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.01) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171065818900/hi-im-that-anon-who-asked-about-angels-and)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! I’m that anon who asked about angels and emotions and I liked your answer :) I mean, I see that HUMAN emotions and feelings are inaccessible for angels but angels have something...well, it’s so tiny in comparison with human things that it can’t be called “emotions”. I see. Your answer shows this whole line and it’s worth reading and I liked it. I think this question seemed very silly for you so thanks for reply.**

Hi and thanks! I’m relieved you actually liked my answer. I know there’s folks who insist that angels are capable of the same emotions and feelings that humans are, so I was worried that it would be upsetting to have my viewpoint that whatever angels are capable of feeling, it’s nothing like true human feelings.

It’s been a plot point too consistently to assume otherwise, at this point. What makes humans  _human_. Why would angels give up immortality and power to experience a short and “limited” (to use Zachariah’s word for it) human lifetime? There has to be something uniquely special about humanity to make the risk and suffering and pain and eventual death worth it.

Chuck talked a lot about it in late s11…

**CHUCK** : The world needed to be born! And you wouldn’t let me! Amara, you give me no choice.  
 **AMARA** : That’s your story. Not mine. The real reason you banished me, why I couldn’t be allowed to exist you couldn’t stand it. Yeah, we’re equals. We weren’t great or powerful because we stood only in relation to each other. You think you made the archangels to bring light? No. You made them to create lesser beings, to make you large. (She struggles to her feet.) To make you Lord. It was ego! You wanted to be big!   
 **CHUCK** : That’s true. (He stands.) But it isn’t the whole truth. There’s a value, a glory in creation that’s greater and truer than my pride or my ego. Call it grace, call it being! Whatever it is, it didn’t come from my hands. It was there waiting to be born. It just is, as you and I just were. Since you’ve been freed, I know that you’ve seen it. (He glances, then nods at DEAN.) Felt it.  
(In growing disbelief, AMARA looks over at DEAN, who looks down.) 

Being, free will, humanity (they both look at Dean). Greater than the archangels who were created to be lesser beings to make Chuck feel large in comparison. The rest of creation,  _human souls_ , were all there waiting to be born as a result.

I mean, I think 11.20 goes the distance in proving it. When God chose to spend however long hidden carefully among humanity, just absorbing it all for himself, experiencing the world from a human perspective, pretending to be human… and it takes a human Metatron of all things to begin to peel back the truth:

**METATRON:**  You want to sell the best-selling autobiography of all time? You explain to me – Tell me why you abandoned me. Us.  
 **CHUCK:**  Because you disappointed me. You all disappointed me.  
 **METATRON:**  (Stands up and looks at CHUCK with wet eyes.) No, look. I know I’m a disappointment, but you’re wrong about humanity. They are your greatest creation because they’re better than you are.  
(CHUCK starts to look more guilty as he looks at METATRON.)  
 **METATRON:**  Yeah, sure, they’re weak and they cheat and steal and… destroy and disappoint. But they also give and create and they sing and dance and love. And above all, they never give up! But, you do!  
(CHUCK looks devastated. METATRON continues to look at CHUCK with a tear rolling down his cheek. CHUCK puts on his glasses, clears his throat, and starts typing with determination in his eyes. METATRON looks heart-broken.)

In the world of Supernatural, humanity (and Humanity) is special.

[spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21)

 

[Feb 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171072777265/hello-there-ive-read-your-angel-feelings-meta)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hello there. I've read your angel feelings meta. Awesome, truly. But what can you say about Cas's declaration of love for the Winchesters in 12x12? Was he speaking from his human experience? Yet, he didn't know Mary back then. Or did he just think he did love them? Because, it's probably what he should do. Idk. Maybe he has learnt somewhere, that it is exactly what you say when you're dying.**

heyo! Thanks so much!

As for Cas’s love declaration in 12.12… I think you might be thinking too hard about it. Fitting all of Castiel’s experiences and emotions into some sort of neat graph where his Emotions can all be tidily compartmentalized based on the level of Humanity he’s currently operating at versus the amount or quality of angel grace pumping through his system… it just doesn’t work to assume that we can rubber stamp, wrap up with a bow, and shelve his entire character into organized little boxes like that, you know?

Cas has truly experienced more of humanity in more ways than any other single angel, and in that I think it’s fair to file his emotions and experiences in a category all their own.

Like even back in s5 he had a very near brush with humanity– both in 5.04 which he didn’t ///actually/// experience because he doesn’t have memories of it and only Dean carries that particular awful memory of a completely “ruined” version of a human Castiel, and later in the season as his powers began to fade as he was cut off from Heaven (culminating in his self-sacrifice in 5.18 and his “human-ish” return in 5.21).

We’ve seen extremes of Cas, from Original Cas in 4.01, doubtful Cas in 4.07, SUPERDoubtful Cas in 4.16, Summoned To Bible Camp For Reprogramming Cas in 4.20, and Choosing to Rebel Cas in 4.22. We’ve seen him confront humanity through Uriel’s hatred and derision, Zachariah’s manipulation to achieve his ends, Anna’s experiences AS a human, and his own doubts and struggle to overcome billions of years of programming to serve Heaven and follow orders.

We’ve seen him play god, swallowing the souls of Purgatory to have enough power to smite an archangel, we’ve seen him lose all his memories and still do his best to help where he could by healing people. We’ve seen him suffer through the damage to Sam’s soul that he took on himself, suffer through Purgatory because he believed he deserved to be there, suffer through what he believed were the Angel Trials to close the gates of Heaven because he believed it was the right thing to do.

We’ve seen him lose his grace completely, becoming entirely human for a time, until duty drove him to steal grace from another angel. (not duty to Heaven this time, but to Dean specifically)

We’ve seen him struggle with what becoming that “barbarian” meant for him, not only by the loss of his humanity but by how that entire experience changed him forever.

Despite the fact that he eventually had his own grace returned to him, he still struggled with where he belonged. The angels in heaven have made it abundantly clear that they no longer see him as one of them– both because when they look at him they don’t see an angel looking back (9.22) and because when he is asked to choose between heaven and the Winchesters he ALWAYS chooses the Winchesters (11.02, 12.19).

I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that Cas’s declaration of love was entirely honest. Cas really isn’t entirely an angel anymore. I mean, that’s what his story has been about for  _years_.

In 9.06 (when Cas was still human) he was confronted by Ephraim, an angel whose job it was to end the suffering of dying angels. To him, the normal ups and downs of humanity felt too intense. “Kinda bummed” to a human qualified for immediate annihilation to Ephraim, who had so little understanding of human emotions as to believe that being upset over a teenage romance breaking up was some sort of insurmountable form of suffering.

**EPHRAIM** : Shh-shh-shhh. It’ll be over soon. I’ll take the pain away.  
 **CASTIEL** : I want to live.  
 **EPHRAIM** : But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

Despite his human pain, despite everything, Cas wanted to live.

**EPHRAIM** : You say you want to live. But you can’t see what I see. By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up. You … chose … death. 

Only Cas really didn’t see it that way. Cas chose hope, love, dreams… I mean, he’s not got some rosy-tinted view of humanity here. He understands the human condition first-hand, and he would choose it over death any day.

I don’t think he lost this understanding when he got his grace back, you know? I don’t think it shut off his ability to comprehend human emotions that he experienced personally. Nor do I think it would impair his ability to understand how those feelings apply to people he’s met SINCE he became an angel again, such as Mary. It’s not an academic exercise like you suggested. He just understands this now.

Probably partly because he never did get his full original grace back, but also at least partly because it’s not just building on that single experience with humanity, but the entire cumulative previous ten years’ worth of experiences.

He’s a far more complicated and intelligent and nuanced character than “insert grace, extract feelings.”

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn 9.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.06) [spn 4.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.01) [spn 4.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.07) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [spn 6.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.22) [spn 9.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.22) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [spn 5.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.21) [spn 11.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.02) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12)


	20. Chapter 20

[Mar 4, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171537150605/hi-first-i-just-want-to-say-your-analysis-on)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: hi! first I just want to say your analysis on destiel it’s just AMAZING and I kind of stalk you all the time but I’ve been too shy to ask anything but ANYWAY I’m still confused as to how Lucifer is alive after Cas stabbed him with an angel blade at the end of 13x12... but then he was fine and no one is confused about it? Did I just miss something or was that never explained? Sorry I know this question is super basic compared to the stuff you usually answer but I just thought you might know :)**

Oh gosh, hi :)

And thanks! I try. But I’m glad you did ask, despite the shyness, because I swear I’m like Grover the Muppet. I’m not a scary monster. And I have blue hair. People often confuse us for one another. :)

Well. Where to start on Lucifer vs angel blades…

First off, “regular angel blades” have never been able to hurt archangels. I mean, yeah, it’s probably owie, but they’re not fatal… Hence why Michael created a special lance to kill Lucifer with (as painfully as possible).

Cas also stabbed Lucifer with his angel blade back in 12.23, and Lucifer barely blinked. He turned right around and killed Cas.

5.19 raised the potential “difference” between regular angel blades and archangel blades:

**KALI** : You’re mine now. And you have something I want. [KALI reaches into GABRIEL’s jacket and removes his angel sword.] An Archangel’s blade. From the Archangel, Gabriel. 

Lucifer supposedly stabbed Gabriel with that exact blade a few scenes later, after Gabriel essentially sacrificed himself so that the Winchesters could get Kali to safety. But  _did he really_? I mean, he was the Trickster, he was Loki, and he’d already pulled two illusions in that episode regarding his sword… Was that just his final illusion? Hopefully we’ll find out now that Gabriel has returned.

Sorry for the digression, I swear I’m getting to the point… heh… angel blades have points…

right, moving on.

It’s interesting because Asmodeus also introduced a weapon we’ve never seen before at the end of 13.13, which was supposedly The Archangel Blade, that only an archangel can wield to kill another archangel. Which sets up an entirely new dynamic between the three archangels currently in play (Lucifer, AU Michael, and the surprise behind door number three, Gabriel).

Okay I swear that was the last diversion. But it sets up the fact that it takes something more than an angel blade to kill an archangel.

I lied, one more diversion. The fight with Gog and Magog proved it yet again– that regular angel blades can be foiled. They’re not all-powerful, and Gog and Magog’s swords (which Dean and Cas now have) sliced through angel blades like butter. I wonder if they’d be more effective against archangels than regular angel blades are?

Okay NOW I’m done with the diversions. :P

But yeah, Lucifer– even weakened after having some of his grace lopped off by AU Michael, is still too powerful to be killed by a standard angel blade. He was still powerful enough to have survived being stabbed, and to fight back and hurt Cas enough that Cas staggered off into the woods to recover. When he was poked back awake, he went to the last place he’d seen Lucifer but he was already long gone by then, snacking on cupid grace and powering himself up again.

It’s going to take more than a standard angel blade to kill Lucifer (or any of the archangels). Then again, I don’t know if anyone’s tried the grace-ectomy like Metatron did to Cas, and then Cas did to Theo and then Metatron, and Crowley did to Adina. I suppose it’s possible to remove his grace, make him fully human, and then kill him? But I don’t know. We just don’t know enough about archangels and what makes them different from regular angels.

On top of that, Lucifer’s still theoretically bound within that purpose-built vessel that Crowley made for him. We also don’t know if he’s just as trapped in there as Cas is in his own body, you know? The fact that Lucifer’s current body functions in much the same way that the Cage does might make his situation different even from the other archangels. We just don’t know.

But we do know that archangel vs standard angel blade will just get you a ticked off archangel. :)

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [spn 5.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.19) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	21. Chapter 21

[Mar 14, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171882334060/matuciak-hi-mittens-in)

21 notes

[matuciak](http://matuciak.tumblr.com/)

 

[ Hi Mittens! In 13x14, Dean asks Cas “whats wrong…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171852618735/hi-mittens-in-13x14-dean-asks-cas-whats-wrong)

> I wonder if the tablet can do something to Cas. Tablets are not for angels. I think that scene was like swallowing souls from Purgatory.

 

Hi hi! Yeah, I mean, it’s long been my personal theory that the Tablets in general have their own power, you know? In addition to the fact that angels are “hardwired” to protect the tablets (which we know from that time Crowley cracked into Samandriel’s hardwiring in 8.10), we have Cas’s on confused confession in 8.17, after he picked up the Angel Tablet:

**DEAN** : So, this "Naomi” has been controlling you since she got you out of Purgatory?  
 **CASTIEL** : Yeah.  
 **DEAN** : Well, w-what broke the connection?  
 **CASTIEL** : I don’t know. I just know that I have to protect this tablet now.  
 **DEAN** : From Naomi?  
 **CASTIEL** : Yes. And from you.  
 **DEAN** : From me? What are you talking about? [CASTIEL and the tablet are suddenly gone, the sound rumbles through the crypt.] Cas? Cas! Damn it.

Cas ran with the Tablet until he was stopped. We know what the Leviathan Tablet being broken out of its Caveman Lego did to Kevin way back in 7.21, and that was when he wasn’t even TOUCHING it. Just cracking it open awakened him as the new Prophet. He abandoned his highly structured and focused life, stole his mom’s car, and drove directly to the tablet’s location, his eyes glowing periodically and “resetting” him on his mission when he freaked out about it. And once he got his hands on the tablet, he clutched it to his chest and was screaming, “What’s HAPPENING?!” Despite his terror and confusion:

**KEVIN** : All I know is, this is – it’s for me. I’m supposed to keep it. 

When the angels show up to take Kevin (and the tablet), they call him “The Sole Keeper Of The Word.” 

The inherent power of the tablets is like… the whole point of s9. Metatron uses the power of the Angel Tablet– as the sole angel who can READ the tablets since he transcribed them– to power himself up, and his magical typewriter. At the end of 9.23, Cas shatters the angel tablet, and with that most of Metatron’s power is gone. 

But yeah, I think Cas is definitely wary of ALL the tablets after his personal experiences with them. I don’t think the demon tablet can particularly  _harm_  him in and of itself. I mean, Crowley had both the angel and demon tablets at various points, and he was still just Crowley. Metatron also had possession of the demon tablet after he’d become human (in 10.18), and it still didn’t affect him because a) he already knew everything on it from having transcribed it, and b) he still had a human soul to protect him from it.

Cas reclaimed the demon tablet from Metatron in 11.06 and brought it back to the bunker (which is why it was still there now). But the Demon Tablet nor the Leviathan Tablet never had the sort of power over Cas that the Angel Tablet exerted on him in 8.17. Maybe that was because Cas had been the one to break it free from the vault of the Earth, or because he was already in a compromised position having just broken free of Naomi’s brainwashing, or because the tablet needed him to take it to immediate safety because it didn’t “want” to be discovered like the Leviathan Tablet had…

The Leviathan Tablet was found AFTER the “natural order” had been corrupted, and was needed to RESTORE the natural order.

The Demon Tablet didn’t particularly want to be found… but it’s a slightly grey area. Crowley kidnapped Kevin to read the tablet for him (we don’t know where it came from or how Crowley found it). Crowley could’ve let sleeping hellhounds lie, but it was his own personal quest for power that even brought the demon tablet to Kevin’s attention. And how it also came to the direct attention of Sam and Dean… and prompted them to even know about let alone undertake the Trials to close the Gates of Hell.

The angel tablet was only discovered because the very fact of its existence was tortured out of an angel, and then hunted down by demons. Crowley wanted to use it for himself, or at least hold on to it as a source of power or even just a fancy bargaining chip. Word of God, don’t you know? Could come in handy… And it absolutely DID NOT want to fall into the hands of potential enemies.

It’s interesting after s11 and the search for all the Hand of God weapons. Considering the tablets themselves are literally imbued with the Word and Power of God, etched into every inch of them, it’s not a stretch to think of them as containing that same sort of power but to a much higher degree. Like in my lil comparison screencaps below, I literally chose that particular frame of Cas because you can still tell it’s Cas… he gets so bright he whites out Naomi’s office AND the Crypt… Look at the lil Hands of God in comparison:

Crowley with the Staff of Aaron in 11.15, Delphine with the shard of the Arc of the Covenant in 11.14, and Lucifer with the Horn of Joshua in 11.18. They’re like… sneezes of power compared to what’s in one tablet.

So yeah, Remove someone’s soul and replace it with THAT sort of power direct from God? But… specifically the sort of power that makes demons and Hell go… that seems like a no-brainer that’s probably a bad combo.

But can the Demon Tablet suddenly hurt Cas, despite him having handled it without any problems, and despite the fact that he’s not “soulless,” because angel grace seems to function similarly to human souls for this metaphysical purpose (and the debate still continues of whether Cas still has his human soul that he had after the fall in 8.23 alongside his grace anyway). So no, I don’t think he’s particularly at risk.

[matuciak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/matuciak) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [spn 11.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.15)[spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [spn 9.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.23) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [cas still flapped off afterward at the mercy of the tablet](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/cas-still-flapped-off-afterward-at-the-mercy-of-the-tablet) [ooh check that tag too <\--](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ooh-check-that-tag-too-%3C--) [i can't even remember what my tablet tag was...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-can%27t-even-remember-what-my-tablet-tag-was...)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [donatello redfield](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/donatello-redfield) [prophets of chuck](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/prophets-of-chuck)


	22. Chapter 22

#  [I came across an interesting tweet…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172037108590/i-came-across-an-interesting-tweet)

[Mar 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172037108590/i-came-across-an-interesting-tweet)

277 notes

[wingedcatninja](http://wingedcatninja.tumblr.com/post/171992267360/i-came-across-an-interesting-tweet):

>   
> 
> 
> When I typed up my reply I realized there was no way I could say what I wanted to say on this subject in only 280 characters. So here goes. This one goes out to [@supernaturalwiki](https://tmblr.co/mrqG3Y_LawOqb0CaRCFd_5Q) .
> 
> I believe prayer in the Supernatural world works through  **intent**  and  **will**. There are many examples of this. 
> 
> When the Winchesters, or anyone, pray to Castiel, or directly to another angel, their  **intent** is for that specific angel to hear them, so they do. Now, I don’t know of course if other angels can hear these prayers as well, but I choose to believe that they can’t.  **UNLESS** …they specifically focus their  **will** on that particular human at that particular moment, in which case I believe they could hear any prayer, whether directed at them or not.
> 
> One example is episode 9.01  _I think I’m gonna like it here_. Dean starts out praying to Castiel but then changes his  **intent** sending the prayer out to any angel that can hear him. We are then shown a number of angels in “prayer range” who react to Dean’s prayer. This leads me to believe that they were unable to hear him when he prayed specifically to Castiel, but when he sent out an “open prayer”, every angel in range was able to hear him.
> 
> Another example, as brought up by the tweet, is how Lucifer was able to pick up Sam’s prayers to Chuck. Lucifer and Sam clearly have some sort of bond from when Sam was Lucifer’s vessel, so when Lucifer is able to reach out through the crack in the cage, he is able to focus his  **will** on Sam, thus hearing his prayers and being able to influence Sam’s mind with the visions.
> 
> So, to conclude, I don’t believe prayers go out over angel radio, but rather have their own specific frequency. Praying to a specific angel equals  **intent** , which works sort of like a callsign, to continue the radio metaphor, getting the attention of that specific angel. On the other hand, if your  **intent** is to put out an “open prayer”, it becomes like an open broadcast on the prayer frequency, letting any angel within range hear you. However, an angel can focus their  **will**  on a specific human and so hear any prayer that human puts out, whether directed at them or not.
> 
> Questions? Comments? 
> 
> Discuss.

Oh, excellent!

First off, I agree with essentially everything in here, and I’m only adding anything to throw more support behind the Intent and Will theory. :)

Two specific examples that highlight this from a different angle:

10.10, and the infamous “longing retcon,” which has been used to explain how Cas has always been able to “find” the Winchesters despite them having been “warded” via the carvings he put on their ribs, as well as a vast number of other things… *ahem*

But when Cas tells Claire that he found her because she was “praying” to him, she denies that she was. He clarifies that it wasn’t a “formal prayer,” but rather that he picked up on her “longing.” And while Claire might not have been specifically pining away for Castiel, she was likely thinking some emotionally-charged thoughts about him, about her father and mother, about Castiel’s impact on her entire life. Her conscious intent may not have been to summon Cas, but her subconscious focus on him in this way was enough for him to use it as some sort of “prayer GPS” to find her, because that was HIS will, and HIS intent.

So in a way, this particular mechanic of “subsonic angel radio” required each of them to be focused on the other in a specific way in order for the connection to be made.

The other example that sort of proves the Intent and Will thing is the numerous times the Winchesters have used “angel-proofing” in order to have a conversation without the risk of angels “overhearing” them. And yes, part of that began back in s6 after they learned that Cas was “eavesdropping” on them, being physically present yet invisible, but I think the perfect example was at the end of 8.10, when Sam and Dean warded the cabin so that Cas wouldn’t be able to overhear them discussing him, and angels in general.

[SAM spray-paints the Enochian angel-warding symbol on the door.]  
 **SAM** : Okay. That should do it. Cas can’t see or hear us now.  
 **DEAN** : Okay, what the hell?  
 **SAM** : I know.  
 **DEAN** : I told you something was off with him since he got back from Purgatory.  
 **SAM** : So, what, you think someone’s messing with him or something?  
 **DEAN** : Who?  
 **SAM** : Angels?  
 **DEAN** : Why would the angels have him kill another angel?

Sure, they may have been a little bit concerned that angels were physically standing outside the window pressing their ears to the glass, but if that was their primary concern, one quick banishing sigil and the angels would’ve been blown away anyway. And yet they specifically warded the place so that angels couldn’t “see or hear” them.

Like that time in 4.20 where Cas appeared inside Dean’s dream and suggested that other angels might’ve been listening in to their conversation…  _inside Dean’s dream_. Implying that if angels want to, they can focus on an individual to that degree. Probably especially if that individual is also “thinking” or even dreaming about specific angels.

Hence the warding to block their conversation from inadvertently find its way to any attentive angels’ ears.

Intent and will, on both sides of the angel radio telephone. :)

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [angel radio](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angel-radio) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn 8.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.10) [spn 10.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.10) [spn 9.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.01) [spn 11.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.06)

 

[Mar 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172313613695/headcanon-cass-grace-doesnt-recover-because-he)

78 notes

**Anonymous asked: Headcanon: Cas’s grace doesn’t recover because he doesn’t want to be an angel anymore, but he can’t eliminate his grace at all cause he believes that this power is only way to protect Winchesters and Jack.**

Hi there! I know this message was at least as old as 13.14, possibly 13.13, because I’ve finally got the mental capacity to spare for answering some older messages (yes, I know there are a ton newer than this one, but this was one I felt I could actually reply to, so here we are!)

But this may have something to do with Cas’s grace not recovering to full capacity the way Sister Jo’s apparently did, and the way Lucifer  _suspects_  his will given enough time (and enough booster doses of grace from Sister Jo and other unsuspecting angels). I’m not entirely sure it does, though, for the main reason that Cas’s relationship with his own grace has always been different from the specific situation Lucifer and Sister Jo are in.

In 8.23, Metatron removed ALL of Cas’s grace, leaving him entirely human and alone in his body, which had been Cas’s body since he was resurrected in 5.01. There was no separate human soul in there with Cas for years before his grace was removed, and Metatron implied with without his grace, what Cas would be left with was equivalent to a human soul– because Metatron believed that when Cas died as a human, his “soul” or whatever would return to Heaven, the way a human soul does. I’m doubling down on this theory after 13.04, where we learn that all dead angels (and demons) go to the Empty, and not to Heaven. 

Of the two, I’d say that Lucifer’s situation is more similar to Cas’s, in that he’s essentially locked into a purpose-built vessel now, thanks to Crowley stuffing him into a Reconstituted Nick Suit the same way Cas IS now his body instead of occupying a willing vessel.

(not to say that Sister Jo might not be in a similar situation after bargaining for the use of that vessel the way she did, but we don’t know the fate of the original owner. Jo could’ve potentially sent her on to Heaven, but that’s not 100% clear.)

The difference here is that Cas lived entirely without grace for months, then topped himself off with the toxic stolen grace (twice), only to have just a small shard of his original grace returned to him  _after more than a year_. Barring some sort of divine intervention, I don’t think Cas can ever go back to being full-on, full-powered angel.

And I don’t even think he  _wants_  to.

Nor do I think that Chuck would willingly “fix” his grace, the same way he refused to restore Metatron’s grace. I mean, if it came down to the end of the series and Cas has gone through his entire character arc and came face to face with Chuck again…  _maybe_  I could see Chuck agreeing to restore Cas’s grace… but only if the entire series ended as a tragedy so awful that Cas would want to forget that any of it ever happened and would choose the oblivion of being an angel over remembering everything he ever learned from the Winchesters about free will and humanity. It would be a tragedy in line with the horror of 9.23 when Cas believed that Dean was dead and lost to him forever. I mean… this is in no way what any of us can possibly want for Cas. It’s frankly horrifying.

For better or worse, Cas is sort of in a state of limbo regarding who and what he is. Right now, especially as he’s grasping for meaning in his resurrection from the Empty, without any other definition or understanding of Dean’s profession of “we need you,” Cas has reverted to what he knows for sure… he has skills, abilities, and powers that are damn useful in this circumstance. So without a better answer to “why was I brought back,” Cas is doing the one thing he believes he can to be worthy of his resurrection.

*cue wailing from the peanut gallery*

Neither Sister Jo nor Lucifer has ever been fully human. They’ve only had small bits of their grace excised. I’ve been trying to think of a concrete metaphor for this, and I think the closest I can get to explaining the difference here is to think of it like a human liver transplant.

Humans can donate a portion of their liver to someone else, and over the course of a few years, both parts grow back into two functioning, whole livers. This is sort of what happens when an angel “donates” a bit of their grace to another angel. The “donor” angel’s grace eventually grows back into its original state, and the recipient angel’s grace latches on to the donated grace to boost it up until their own grace is fully replenished.

But when Cas took on the stolen grace, he’d already had a fully-functioning human soul… the grace didn’t have the proper anchor to latch on to. It was sort of like getting an incompatible transplant and going through a year of organ rejection and failure. Even when he got his own tiny shred of his original grace back, even if it was “compatible” with his own human soul in a way the stolen grace wasn’t, the damage had already been done. Cas was already fundamentally not the same being he’d been before that grace was extracted in 8.23.

I’ve been thinking of the difference between their circumstances– Lucifer and Jo having had small bits of their grace extracted– as more like having donated blood and being a bit weakened for a few days until they’ve had a chance to recover. But for Cas, he’d had ALL his blood removed and replaced with something entirely different…  _for more than a year_. He self-administered a couple of failed transfusions with incompatible blood types (the stolen grace from Theo and Adina), and the finally had a small dose of his own “blood” returned to him, but  _he is not the same anymore_.

Like every angel he encountered has told him some version of, “you’re not one of us anymore, you’re not an angel anymore.” And I think that has a much to do with it as anything. And this has been Cas’s personal character arc for years now. He’s on a discovery mission, learning who and what he is, and who and what he wants to be.

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Apr 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172871040755/educate-me-if-archangels-have-true-vessels-and)

41 notes

**Anonymous asked: EDUCATE ME if Archangels have true vessels and only those vessels can withstand them without sizzling then how the HECKLE did Raphael manage to use two different vessels**

[purgatory-jar](https://purgatory-jar.tumblr.com/post/172870015067/educate-me-if-archangels-have-true-vessels-and):

> ???? oh man you’ve come to the wrong person unfortunately, I am nooo good at this sorta spn canon. 
> 
> I think (and I am making a probably stupid assumption here based on the fact that both Raphael´s vessels in season 6 where people of color) that his vessels were members of the same family? or at least blood related? Same way as Cas did not explode Claire when he possessed her. Except Cas didn’t have Raphael powers (otherwise season 6 would have had a different plot right? but I digress.)
> 
> Maybe only Lucifer and Michael had true vessels? then again, was Michael gonna burn out Adam when he possessed him, or was Adam safe cause he was Dean and Sam’s half brother? 
> 
> I think the reply to your answer is: plot holes. 
> 
> Anyone wants to take a shot at this? 

 

Yeah, Dean questioned Michael back in 5.13 about how he was able to use John as a vessel for a hot minute, and Michael replied that Dean may have been his “true vessel,” i.e. the one prophesied as his “sword” for the Apocalypse because of the whole “brothers” aspect since Sam was Lucifer’s true vessel, but that he actually had many potential vessels.

Just as Lucifer was able to use Nick for pretty much all of s5, just as Raphael was able to find another new vessel after Balthazar reduced his original vessel to a pile of salt in 6.03, and just as Hannah was able to use two entirely different people as vessels. And yeah, Cas was able to occupy Claire as well as the woman in 1903 in 12.10.

There’s several theories as to why Lucifer “burned through” Nick’s vessel, either that there was something about him that wasn’t as “strong” in the bloodline as in Sam and Dean’s bloodline, but Lucifer (unlike the other archangels) also required his vessel to consume huge quantities of demon blood to properly tolerate his possession. We were never given any sort of explanation for that, unless it was simply something about tolerating the “darkness” of Lucifer that we now can ascribe to the fact he bore the Mark of Cain, maybe?

This is entering serious diy headcanon territory, all of which may change again if future canon chooses to clarify any of it.

But as regards all angels, it’s not individuals who can potentially be vessels, but family bloodlines, which are apparently stronger in some individuals than others (such as Hael, who looked like she could’ve been part of Jimmy Novak’s family, and yet was already suffering a breakdown under the strain of bearing Hael for less than a day).

As such, I think this notion of “True Vessels” only applies to Sam and Dean as Lucifer and Michael’s “destined” vessels specifically for the purposes of the apocalypse, and not to archangels (or any angels) in general.

Much the same way the term “Righteous Man” only applies to Dean’s specific role in having broken the first seal in hell and started the apocalypse. 

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)

 

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173117561665/so-few-angels-left-reapers-dont-seem-to-be)

18 notes

**[andimeantittosting](http://andimeantittosting.tumblr.com/) asked: So few angels left! Reapers don't seem to be included in that number, though. Do you think cupids are? Or is that regular angels only?**

I have no idea if cupids are included in that number, but they are angels, so possibly? But cupids tend to do their work on Earth, outside the “maintenance structure” of Heaven, so it’s possible they weren’t included in that total.

But reapers… aren’t angels at all, as far as my understanding of them goes. So no, I don’t think they’ve been included here. But you’re the second person to suggest to me that reapers are angels tonight so I’m gonna post this because to the best of my understanding of canon, reapers are not angels.

[spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [andimeantittosting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/andimeantittosting)

 

[May 10, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173786336630/what-if-cas-is-the-only-angel-thats-able-to-do)

150 notes

**Anonymous asked: What if Cas is the only angel that's able to do the mind-strip thingy that he did to Donatello and that AU!Cas was going to do to Charlie? If it's just a simple procedure and there was no attempt to get info out of Charlie via torture and they were going straight to that horrible method, why can't the other three angels that were already there do it? Why did they need to call in Cas?**

OOH.

OH NO.

THAT

IS AWFUL TO CONTEMPLATE

But I mean… this goes right back to early s4 in a way… 4.07 to be specific:

**Castiel:**  This is Uriel, he’s what you might call a… specialist.  
 **Dean:**  What kind of specialist? What are you gonna do?  
 **Castiel:**  You – uh, both of you – you need to leave this town immediately.  
 **Dean:**  Why?  
 **Castiel:** Because we’re about to destroy it.

Uriel’s “specialty” of apparently blowing stuff up. Gabriel’s specialty seems to be illusions (even if he borrowed that from Loki) or potentially “Messenger of God.”

Naomi was the “reprogrammer.”

Anael/Sister Jo pushed her button

Zachariah was middle management and eminently stabbable. >.>

Cupids are matchmakers.

I mean… Angels really all do believe in “playing their roles.”

What if there’s a heck of a lot more to it than just doing their duty and fulfilling their assignments? What if it’s just doing what they were literally built and programmed to do? All the special tricks for their particular “role” installed in the operating system?

*flashbacks to Crowley hacking into Samandriel’s source code*

I mean it would go a long way to explaining why Heaven just got more and more screwed up once angels started dying and their roles couldn’t be filled by anyone else, you know? You can’t just plug a different angel into that old vacated spot in the Heaven Machine…

That’s pretty freaking grim actually.

[spn 13.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.22) [spn 4.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.07) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [i wanna think about this more when i'm not entirely compromised by it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-wanna-think-about-this-more-when-i%27m-not-entirely-compromised-by-it)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[May 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173803026255/ive-seen-some-wanted-cas-to-eat-aucass-grace)

48 notes

**Anonymous asked: I've seen some wanted Cas to eat AU!Cas's grace and I don't get why? I mean Cas clearly is disgusted by grace-eating and views it as cannibalism, I don't think he would ever do that unless it was a life-or-death situation. Thoughts? (P.S. love your blog <3)**

Oh my gosh. First off, hi, and thank you <3

Second of all… O_O

I am legit horrified by the notion of our Cas even remotely entertaining the notion of cannibalizing his AU Evil self’s grace.

He HATED the fact that he’d been in a situation where he literally had no other choice back in 9.09 in stealing Theo’s grace. He was READY TO DIE. He asked Theo to give him a quick death, and only began entertaining the notion of surviving when Theo hesitated and believed Cas could “introduce him” to Metatron and just… D:

He HATED that that’s what he felt driven to in order to survive. He was sickened by it, and was content to let Theo’s grace burn him out. Crowley had to force-feed him Adina’s grace in 10.03 to top off his mojo tank.

And in late s13 we’ve seen how Asmodeus tortured Gabriel by using him as a grace milk cow, how absolutely abhorrent this grace vampirism is in practice through Lucifer’s repulsive eating of numerous angels, and how it’s framed as like… the WORST thing.

Even Gabriel, now that they absolutely NEEDED him to be strong, didn’t choose to do what Lucifer did in order to power himself up. I mean… why the HECK would we want Castiel to choose to do so? Even if it’s technically “his” grace already, even if it’s an alternate version of himself?

Especially in a scene that was directly pitting OUR Cas who loves humanity against a fully-angelic Cas who hated humanity? I mean… I feel dirty even thinking about it.

[spn 13.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.22) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	23. Chapter 23

May 20, 2018

139 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think at this point in time cas thinks of himself as male or still genderless?**

oh dear…

This is seriously dangerous territory, because many people have different views on this to start with based on personal identification with Cas, their emotional involvement in his story, their personal interpretation of what angels even are… Basically this is widely open to interpretation, and no matter how I answer this, since you are specifically asking *MY PERSONAL OPINION* by sending this message *TO MY PERSONAL INBOX* and not like… me hijacking anyone else’s post to  _well, actually_  all over their headcanons and interpretations.

So as long as we go into this discussion with the understanding that I AM NOT TRYING TO DISCREDIT ANYONE ELSE’S INTERPRETATION, BUT HAVE BEEN SPECIFICALLY ASKED TO DETAIL ***MY OWN PERSONAL INTERPRETATION*** and that nothing I say here is claiming to be “factually correct” while implying that other interpretations are “factually incorrect” as such… and we can bear that in mind while reading my reply and not assume that I am dismissing any other interpretation by default or attempting to Lay Down The Law or anything…

Basically I’m saying if you don’t want to be exposed to a theory that may or may not line up with your own emotional and personal interpretation of Cas’s identity, then I invite you to please skip over the rest of my response here. Please take responsibility for your own feelings about this matter, and only click the Read More if you are prepared to accept the consequences of that action.

*end disclaimer, even though it’s still probably not enough of a disclaimer >.>*

Okay…

Your question presupposes that Cas ever considered himself “genderless” in the first place. I… haven’t seen any evidence in canon that angels don’t have at least some sense of gender identity. I know others have quoted the line about Benjamin in 12.10 to confirm that angels don’t have an inherent gender, but… I personally interpreted it to mean that angels don’t necessarily identify with the gender of their current vessel. Let me back up for a second and work my way up to the Benjamin conversation.

Castiel has always identified as “male.” The same way Raphael has always identified as “male,” and was referred to as “he” even when he was occupying a female-presenting vessel. The same way Hannah always used female pronouns even when occupying a male-presenting vessel.

In addition, angels have referred to “my brothers and sisters” so many times over the series that I’ve lost count. For the most part, angelic gender identity has loosely aligned with the apparent gender of their vessel, but if the angels themselves didn’t self-identify as either male or female, then what purpose is there to differentiate between “brothers and sisters?” Why not use a gender-neutral term such as “siblings?” And no angel has ever referred to themselves or other angels in gender-neutral terms. Dean has taunted various angels about being “junkless,” but we know that’s not true in the SPN universe (we have nephilim to prove that).

And then we have Benjamin, introduced in a female-presenting vessel, with the bonus of a romantic love connection between the angel and the human occupying the same body as equals. This is a big chunk of quoted dialogue here, but I think it’s all important for understanding my read on things, and not just pulling a single line of dialogue out of context:

 **SAM** : Enough. Cas, you said when you heard Benjamin, he – he was screaming.  
**CAS** : It was, um… Look, Benjamin wouldn’t call for help lightly. And he wouldn’t put himself in harm’s way if he could help it.  
**DEAN** : Wow, this Benjamin seems like he’s pretty cool, you know. Like he wouldn’t make any half-cocked, knee-jerk choices.  
**CAS** : Yeah, you know what I like about him? Is that he’s sarcastic, but he’s thoughtful and appreciative, too.  
**DEAN** : Now what is that supposed to mean?  
**SAM** : Okay, okay, the road, road. Dude, watch the road.  
**DEAN** : I got it.  
**SAM** : Anything else, Cas?  
**CAS** : Benjamin is always very careful. Long ago, he found a powerfully devout vessel in Madrid, and her faith, it… she gave him everything – her trust and her body.  
**DEAN** : Wait. So Benjamin’s a woman.  
**CAS** : Benjamin is an angel. His vessel is a woman. But it – it’s – it’s more than that. She’s not just his vessel.  
**SAM** : She’s… She’s his friend.  
**CAS** : Yeah. Benjamin would never put her in unnecessary danger.

With Benjamin, we have another situation like Raphael’s and Hannah’s, where an angel identifies as a different gender than their vessel presents as, and again Cas differentiates Benjamin’s “self-identity” as separate and different from his vessel’s. He never once refers to Benjamin as “she” or as “them” or “they.” Benjamin is always “he.”

It’s not “Benjamin is an angel whose vessel is a woman.” or “She’s not just a vessel.” He specifically differentiates Benjamin as HIM. and HIS vessel. “SHE (his vessel) gave HIM everything.”

If the intent was to imply that angels have no inherent gender outside of how their vessels present themselves, this would’ve been the perfect opportunity to do so. And the writing clearly underscores Benjamin’s inherent or self-identified gender as specifically male.

So… while that doesn’t really answer your question, at least it explains MY VIEW, and why I don’t really have an answer to your question. Because I don’t think that Cas has EVER thought of himself as “genderless” in the way your question implies.

From the start, he’s used male pronouns for himself. Even in 4.20 when Sam and Dean find Jimmy and ask what happened to Castiel, Jimmy’s reply is “He’s gone.” Not “they’re gone.” Or, “the angel is gone,” or even “It’s gone.” Even Jimmy, after having Castiel inside him for the better part of a year, recognizes Castiel as “he.”

Even when Castiel is possessing his own daughter.

So…

I think Castiel’s gender identity as male has only solidified since he’s been “alone” in his very own purpose-built human body since his first resurrection in 5.01. Having spent part of s9 entirely human within that body has likely only reinforced that self-image. But there is absolutely nothing within canon that leads me to assume that even in his Celestial Wavelength form he would’ve identified as “genderless.”

So. There you go. If you don’t like this interpretation, or have an entirely different interpretation, or if you think I’m full of shit and have destroyed your image of how you read Castiel as a character or angels in general… that’s fine! YOU DO YOU! But remember I WAS SPECIFICALLY ASKED MY OPINION AND HAVE THUS DELIVERED IT! WITH ZERO MALICIOUS INTENT AGAINST ANYONE WHO CHOOSES TO INTERPRET THIS DIFFERENTLY!

Please bear these facts in mind before sending me awful anons telling me how ignorant/terrible/disgusting/whatever I am. I disclaimered the heck outta this post. If anyone read something in this post they reacted poorly to, I mean… I gave fair warning.

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [because knowing how chuck and amara presented as the 'two sides of the coin' at the center of creation/destruction](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-knowing-how-chuck-and-amara-presented-as-the-%27two-sides-of-the-coin%27-at-the-center-of-creation%2Fdestruction) [and the entirety of the universe has been metaphorically represented as these sorts of dualities...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-the-entirety-of-the-universe-has-been-metaphorically-represented-as-these-sorts-of-dualities...) [i mean... i don't read the angels as metaphorically separate from those inherent metaphysical dualities you know?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean...-i-don%27t-read-the-angels-as-metaphorically-separate-from-those-inherent-metaphysical-dualities-you-know%3F) [meh... okay... whatever](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/meh...-okay...-whatever)

 

[May 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174093544490/wow-your-explanation-about-angel-gender-is-so)

12 notes

**Anonymous asked: Wow! Your explanation about angel gender is so cool. Now I don’t know what to think about it :) My headcanon was: there are no genders in Enochian. Angels sometimes speaks in human languages and when they spoke in language with differentiated pronouns at the first time they were confused which one to use. And maybe they just used only masculine forms(because mostly they’re the shortest), but some angels said “no! I definitely want you to refer “she” about me”. And now we have what we have :]**

Aw, thanks. :)

I don’t know about the version of Enochian the angels on Supernatural use, but the version “created” by John Dee in our real world absolutely does have gendered words. I’m by no means an expert in Enochian (either in-show, or in the real world), so don’t put too much stock in my opinion of it. :P

But I do like your notion that Angels had decided for themselves whether to identify as “masculine” or “feminine” whether based on their particular powers or skills or just how they perceived themselves. It gives the angels at least a modicum of free will inherent in who and what they are. :)

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

[May 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174094645160/do-you-think-jacks-grace-could-only-have-been)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Jack's grace could only have been accessed with the Archangel Blade? I'm curious if simply taking his grace would have been an option early in the season if only Dean had thought of it.**

You know? I honestly hadn’t even thought of it, because once Jack was born, “removing his grace” hadn’t been on anyone’s agenda. If it had come to the point where Jack went “nuclear” and Dean ever felt like he needed to act on his promise to kill Jack if he ever deserved it (and honestly, Dean DID NOT want to do that, but it was the same promise he elicited from Cas when he was terrified of what he might become with the MoC, you know? Dean meant it reassuringly, that he wouldn’t let Jack destroy the world, because Jack was terrified of his own powers at that point… but I digress, as per usual) :P

Not to mention that *SAM* was actively trying to help Jack make peace with and learn to accept his powers through the first part of the season. And not only for Jack’s sake, but in order to come to terms with what having powers had made Sam think about *himself* for most of his life. In addition to hoping that since Jack’s birth had opened the portal to the war world, that if Jack did master his powers he might be able to open that portal again to find and save Mary.

THEY ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT TO REMOVE JACK’S GRACE. At least not until they were sure there was no hope of saving Mary.

So…

Jack was stabbed with an angel blade pretty early on (in 13.01), and it didn’t even hurt him. Kinda ruined his shirt, though. But they’d never intentionally tried to remove his grace. Partly because they didn’t have cause to yet, because Jack was basically a smol precious nougat who just missed his mom and Castiel, and only wanted to be Good. But also because they cautiously hoped that he might actually BE a force for Good.

There wasn’t even further talk about attempting to remove his grace with the creepy syringe thing that Sam mentioned back in 12.19 that Cas had used on him in 9.11, and they actively had possession of that device in the bunker. Because removing Jack’s grace wasn’t even on their agenda at the time.

Not to mention the fact that Cas had been personally traumatized by having his own grace ripped out, and Sam and Cas had done the same to Metatron as a horrific form of coercion. I think they were all aware of how… barbaric… the concept of ripping out someone’s grace was, akin to ripping out a human soul. And Jack’s grace was inherently tied to his human soul, so they weren’t entirely sure what that might do to him either. Plus I think they all must recall what Anna once described as removing her own grace in 4.10– “It kind of hurts. Try cutting your kidney out with a butter knife. That kind of hurt. I ripped out my grace.” I don’t think any of them were prepared to inflict that sort of horrific violence on Jack without good cause.

Especially when later in the season we have Lucifer doing exactly that to a string of unfortunate angels… concluding with Jack himself… so, yeah… it was framed as a disturbing and selfish act akin to cannibalism. And which was why Cas was so horrified with HIMSELF for having done something similar back in s9.

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [spn s13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn 4.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.10) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [spn 9.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.11) [spn 10.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.17) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester)


	25. Chapter 25

Aug 8, 2018

38 notes

**[nour7xx](https://nour7xx.tumblr.com/) asked: Hey Mittens, how are you doing? hope you're having a great day! 💜 Hmm, what do you think about Cas' sexuality? both his sexual drive and orientation? it really makes me confused sometimes... 😓**

hi hi! I’m fine, just still super busy catching up with everything after a week of gish… 

Cas’s sexuality is really hard to define, though. There’s been so much written on the subject postulating on… all of it. How he identifies himself, who he’d find attractive, and how… I mean, he’s not even  _corporeal_  in his original form, let alone human, so that complicates everything even beyond trying to fit him into a human gender, you know?

All I can tell you is how *I PERSONALLY* read him based on canon we have up to this point. This isn’t to invalidate how anyone else sees him, but  _strictly my personal take_. So I’ll kindly invite anyone who wants to argue with *my personal read of a fictional character* to address their complaints to the department of “that’s very nice for you” at “it doesn’t change how *I* see him” Inc.

If this is potentially problematic for anyone reading this, I seriously encourage you to NOT click the read more button there. I was asked for *MY PERSONAL OPINION* and I give it. This isn’t “the one true reading of Castiel.” This is MY PERSONAL OPINION.

Okay, now that that’s abundantly clear, 

Let’s start with his gender identity, because I know a lot of people read him (and all angels) as gender-neutral after 12.10, and basically… I came to the opposite conclusion based on what was actually said in canon. So obviously this is still easy to interpret through individual lenses of understanding here. I’m not sure of the show will ever make this more emphatically clear, but my takeaway from this exchange:

**CAS** : Benjamin is always very careful. Long ago, he found a powerfully devout vessel in Madrid, and her faith, it… she gave him everything – her trust and her body.  
 **DEAN** : Wait. So Benjamin’s a woman.  
 **CAS** : Benjamin is an angel. His vessel is a woman. But it – it’s – it’s more than that. She’s not just his vessel.  
 **SAM** : She’s… She’s his friend.

Is that Cas CLEARLY referred to Benjamin repeatedly with male pronouns.

Angels in Supernatural have always been identified with either male or female pronouns, regardless of the apparent gender of their vessels. Take Raphael, who we saw first in a male vessel, and then in a female vessel. He was always referred to with MALE pronouns, except for when Crowley expressed some confusion in 6.22:

**CROWLEY** : You know, Castiel y-you’ve said all sorts of shameful, appalling, scatological things about Raphael. I-I’ve found him, her, to be really quite reasonable.

But everyone else, from Dean to Cas to Balthazar, always referred to Raphael as male despite his vessel. Same thing with Hannah after she took a male vessel. From the very beginning of angels on Supernatural, we’ve heard them mention “my brothers and sisters,” as if there’s a differentiation to be made that goes beyond the gender of their vessels, you know?

It’s not that I think angels don’t have a gender, it’s that their gender doesn’t always match the apparent gender of their human vessel at any given time.

But… Cas has always identified himself as male. Regardless of his vessel, whether Jimmy or Claire or the woman in 1901 or now  _literally his very own body_. That’s not his vessel anymore, it’s his body. So Cas might be somewhat of a special case among angels anyway, especially now that Lucifer and his specially-made body are dead.

So that’s how I see his gender, that he does and always has identified himself as male. (whatever that means for an angel, but even with his very own human body, he seems comfortable identifying with that body now)

As Cas said back in s6, he’s utterly indifferent to sexual orientation, and I believe he kind of is. I mean, I think for a long time before he began to fall he repressed (or didn’t even experience) any sort of physical or romantic attraction. He was terrified by even the mention of sexual activity back in 5.03, and perplexed by his reaction to pornography in 6.10, but I think that’s a reductive way to view the whole “why is he slapping her rear” scene, because there’s a heck of a lot more going on there than just the porn… far more than I want to delve into here just to justify my personal read on Cas’s sexuality.

(Meaning, I believe there was nothing sexual or romantic about that kiss with Meg, because it literally had nothing to do with sex or porn, it had to do with punishment and control)

I think Cas is curious about human feelings, including romantic and sexual attraction, and he dabbled with that when he WAS human, but his single experience was not exactly… ultimately fulfilling, you know? Getting tortured and murdered first thing in the morning isn’t a great morning after…

I personally see him as somewhere on the demisexual and demiromantic spectrum. I think he could experience attraction if he had a, let’s say, profound bond with someone. I don’t think he just casually experiences sexual or emotional or romantic attraction to random people, you know? But based on a deep understanding and connection with someone, yeah… so demi. And I don’t think gender really matters to him.

But again, this is just how I see him (and how I typically write him).

Please don’t come at me with pitchforks if you’re positive that angels are agender and asexual or genderfluid pansexuals, or whatever. Go you for having an awesome read on a fictional character that makes you happy! This is mine! *high fives everyone and shoots finger pistols*

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[spn 9.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.03) [just because I mention it and I know people block mentions of it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-because-I-mention-it-and-I-know-people-block-mentions-of-it) [spn 6.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.10) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 6.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.22) [right now i think for him it's more that there's other stuff taking precedence over dealing with this you know?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/right-now-i-think-for-him-it%27s-more-that-there%27s-other-stuff-taking-precedence-over-dealing-with-this-you-know%3F) [kinda been a bit busy to really delve into it to any great degree...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kinda-been-a-bit-busy-to-really-delve-into-it-to-any-great-degree...) [nour7xx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nour7xx)


	26. Chapter 26

[Sep 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178223451805/hi-mittens-watching-10x3-again-im)

15 notes

**[anarchiana](https://anarchiana.tumblr.com/) asked: Hi Mittens. Watching 10x3 again... I'm wondering... Couldn't Hannah have just given Cas some of her grace instead of going to Metraton for Cas's grace, just like Anael gave hers to Lucifer? I hate seeing Cas suffer so much. Thank you. :-)**

I’m not sure Cas would’ve accepted it, even if she had offered. But no, I don’t think she would’ve offered. I mean, the angels seemed completely skeeved by the idea, and it was always presented as “barbaric,” and not a reasonable option, you know?

And while yes, Hannah didn’t completely dismiss the idea of Cas acquiring additional grace, she seriously avoided having to think about where additional grace would need to come from. I think in her mind, that was Cas’s issue to deal with… she liked to keep herself distanced from the actual messiness of reality, in a lot of ways.

I think even Anael knew what she was offering Lucifer there was considered a huge taboo by the rest of the angels. It did keep Lucifer from killing her outright though. She was a practical businesswoman and was willing to do a lot of skeevy things… like portraying herself as a faith healer and selling healing for cash…

But the grace stealing thing wasn’t looked upon with any sort of favor by any of the other angels, you know? I mean, it was Metatron telling Cas’s army in 9.22 about Cas’s stolen grace that was what first put the kernel of doubt into the angels following him– including Hannah…

**METATRON** : Well, look around. You’ve seen earth. You’ve had a taste of free will. I got to ask you – do you like it? I mean, the way you’ve flocked off to follow Castiel tells me you need to follow someone. It’s in your DNA. But Cas – he’s not what you think he is. He sends angels out to die. Have you told them about your stolen Grace, Castiel? How it’s fading away, and when it burns out, so will you? So…No, then. I’m not the best, but I’m the best you’ve got. You want to stay with Castiel, fine, but he’s playing you, because at the end of the day, the only thing he cares about is himself and the Hardy boys there. You’ve got a choice to make. Make the right one.  
[METATRON clicks off]  
 **CASTIEL** [turning to the angels]: He’s lying.  
 **HANNAH** : About the Grace?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s complicated.  
 **HANNAH** : So he wasn’t lying.  
 **CASTIEL** : He was about everything else. He…you believe me, don’t you?

Long story short, no. They didn’t believe him. Even after Hannah got the proof she needed that Metatron had been lying about everything else, and Cas had been telling the truth all along, she was still skeeved about the stolen grace. Like, on a level of skeeved that Dean was upon finding out Sam had been powering up by drinking demon blood… that’s how distasteful Hannah (and the majority of the angels) found it.

[spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 9.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.22) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [anarchiana](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anarchiana)

 

[Oct 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178985995860/michaels-halo-actually-looks-a-lot-like-the)

72 notes

**Anonymous asked: Michael’s halo actually looks a lot like the spirals in the opening card. They also reminds me of some interior shots of Peacemaker from Winona Earp. Thoughts?**

Interesting… I went and looked at the title card frame-by-frame, and the three “rings” around it start out looking very much like the golden “eye” from the s13 title card:

  


Sort of being blown up by Dinkle’s wings. It feels… so aggressive. That SNAP of this pair of perfect wings (compared to the burnt wings of s9′s title card, and the fluffy ideal of the METATRON wings title card of 9.18). This just perfectly sums up Dinkle and his Agenda that it felt like a blow to the chest when one frame later that golden eye just gets flapped off the screen:

  
  


The concentric circles are still there, but this is Michael’s version now. This eye will see what he wants it to see. 

It sort of reminds me to all the lightning Raphael blew into town with way back in 5.03:

But more controlled (and also with 9 years of advancement in VFX capabilities).

Especially now with Nick, and some pretty heavy questions his current status has dropped on us (whether Bucklemming pick up those questions and address them or just use Nick as their personal meat puppet, the questions have still been posed to us here), and the state of Raphael’s vessel in 5.03, and the fact he’s the only archangel we haven’t seen or heard about since 6.22… I just find this interesting.

[spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn title cards](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-title-cards) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Oct 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179016397190/so-when-demons-let-their-meatsuit-take-the-reins)

391 notes

[clusterjam](http://clusterjam.tumblr.com/post/179008946305/so-when-demons-let-their-meatsuit-take-the-reins):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179005280810/so-when-demons-let-their-meatsuit-take-the-reins):
>
>> [obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/178998543232/so-when-demons-let-their-meatsuit-take-the-reins):
>>
>>> So, when demons let their meatsuit take the reins (the way Kevin’s girlfriend did at Crowley’s behest), would their demon face be hidden too?
>>> 
>>> Because that would explain why Cas didn’t notice a room full of demons, if they were hiding behind their meatsuits.
>> 
>> This is how I’ve always thought of it, yeah. Since 3.16 when Dean was able to see demon faces as the hellhounds closed in on him, he could see Ruby’s face and Lilith’s face, but  _only when he was focusing on them_. Like, he couldn’t tell that Lilith had taken over Ruby’s meatsuit until he really looked.
>> 
>> And then in 6.11 while he was wearing Death’s ring, playing Death, using all the associated powers (including teleporting himself, etc.) he didn’t suddenly react as if he could see Tessa’s true reaper face or whatever.
>> 
>> In 4.22 when the demon Sam and Ruby captured went dormant and let her vessel experience the torture, I always assumed she was locked away in there the way Gadreel locked Sam into his own mind in s9, and Luci locked Cas up in s11. Like, nobody looked at Casifer–  _really_  looked– and saw CAS. The angel who noticed him in the park feeding seagulls needed to come in for a closer look, and then confronted him knowing full well it was Lucifer, despite the fact Cas was still in there, too.
>> 
>> So yeah, I think angels and demons both have the power to manipulate what the world (i.e. other supernatural beings) see when they look at them.
>> 
>> And heck, going back to Tessa in 2.01, the first time she met Dean:
>> 
>> **Dean:** You know, you read the most interesting things. For example, did you know that reapers can alter human perception? I sure didn’t. Basically they can make themselves appear however they want. Like, say, uh, a pretty girl. You are much prettier than the last reaper I met.  
>  **Tessa:**  I was wondering when you would figure it out.  
>  **Dean:**  I should have known. That whole “accepting fate” rap of yours is far too laid-back for a dead chick. But the mother, and the body, I’m still trying to figure that one out.  
>  **Tessa:** It’s my sandbox, I can make you see whatever I want.
>> 
>> I CAN MAKE YOU SEE WHATEVER I WANT. Maybe I just internalized that fact and applied it broadly to all supernatural beings that have the capability to present something other than their “true form” to the world, and maybe that’s not the assumption canon has been working under all these years, but heck it’s how I’ve always interpreted it.
>> 
>> Angels are wavelengths of celestial intent, demons are smoke monsters, reapers are… heck we have no idea honestly because we see what they want us to, and I think angels, demons, and probably a host of other creatures do too.
>> 
>> I mean there was that time Cas looked funny at Dean and couldn’t pin exactly what seemed “off” about him, until Dean patted his shoulder and he must’ve felt something, only to grab Dean’s arm and roll up his sleeve to find the Mark of Cain, which we later learned was the lock that held back the Darkness.
>> 
>> Perception and presentation… it’s interesting to me.
>> 
>> heck there’s other examples but it’s now 4 am and I’m gonna go use the sleeps. I’ll think of them tomorrow…
> 
> tbh i’ve always assumed that angels had to TRY to see things like turning on x-ray vision. Like, it isn’t just that they can ALWAYS see which angel they are talking to, they have to turn some special switch on. The same way angels can tell whether someone is lying or not, which has also been debated. Idk if there is any evidence of this or not, but it’s how I’ve always seen it. The only thing that refutes this is 7x17 when emannuel!cas saw the demon’s true faces but it could be that he did it on accident or even muscle memory or s/t just like how he smote the demons and remembered who he was.
> 
> so it’s not that crazy to me that cas didn’t examine each and every person he interacted with in that bar to see if they were a demon.

In 7.17, Emmanuel!Cas returned home to see two men having a violent altercation on his front porch, one of whom was stabbed by the other and flamed out because he was a demon stabbed by the demon knife. Even if the altercation hadn’t been enough for him to take a “closer look,” or flip on the mojovision, basically watching the demon’s death throes with the flashy-flashy likely would’ve been enough to trigger it. Or at the very least enough to trigger the demon’s true face to show to people with the ability to see it, because it was too traumatized as it died to hide it.

Like Muriel the angel in 9.09, who replied to Cas’s prayer for help, but Cas didn’t recognize at first (well he was human at the time, but still, with a bit of squinting he could at least identify angels sometimes while he was human, and when they specifically WANTED to be recognized… like Ephraim, the Rit Zien angel in 9.06, who likely was doing the full-on scary-face SEE ME when he knocked on the door and Cas let him in, because he wanted to get that reaction from Cas– who then just casually referred to him by name and Ephraim was surprised that Cas remembered who he was, but that’s just Cas…). Muriel was TRYING to remain hidden from the other angels, and they both were only captured because other angels had followed the trail of Cas’s prayers to locate them.

I think they’re not just always walking around with their angelic or demonic faces hanging out, you know?

Like in 3.16, when Dean is pulled over by the cop, he does a little double-take. This is already a heightened adrenaline situation for him, because on top of it being BAD to get pulled over on a good day when you’ve got a trunk full of weapons and are on the FBI most wanted list (and supposed to be dead), there was the ticking clock of finding Lilith before the hellhounds caught up to him. So Dean’s ALREADY hyperfocused, and it’s still just a regular traffic stop because his tail light is out, until he  _really looks_  and then specifically says this:

**SAM** : Dean just killed a demon. How’d you know?  
 **DEAN** : I just knew. I could see its face. Its real face under that one.

Which I’d always assumed was describing this effect, where the human face serves as a sort of mask that you have to actually focus on to see THROUGH to the demon inside. Not that the demon sort of invisibly hovered around the periphery of the occupied vessel like some sort of weird aura or whatever.

And because of the way demons (and angels… like Gadreel, Muriel, and Cas) can sort of “go dormant” and use their vessel/meatsuit as a sort of hideout that even the human they’re occupying might potentially be unaware of, yeah, I always assumed they could mask their identity from others if they chose to.

[spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [hey look even MORE canon to support 14.01 >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hey-look-even-MORE-canon-to-support-14.01-%3E.%3E)

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [and demon smoke and whatever the heck reapers are apparently :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-demon-smoke-and-whatever-the-heck-reapers-are-apparently-%3AP)

 

[Oct 14, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179054803660/my-question-is-why-did-cas-say-jacks-grace-is)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: My question is, why did Cas say Jack's grace is going to regenerate? If Lucifer took all of it, then wouldn't it be gone for good? Like Cas' was in season 9? Cas only got his back cuz he found his original grace, but it wasn't going to regenerate on its own. Am I missing something? Does nephilim grace act differently? (I tried looking thru your blog to see if you already answered this, but I didn't seen anything. Sorry if i just didn't look hard enough, lol. Thanks :))**

Hi hi. :)

Cas said it, but we’re still not entirely sure what’s up with Jack’s powers, you know? There’s been a bit of a debate since 13.23 aired on whether or not Jack’s powers would regenerate, or whether he’d been left entirely human. There were a few comparison posts looking at the different vfx used in 8.23 and 13.23– when Metatron cut out Cas’s grace and when Lucifer cut out Jack’s. After the extraction in 8.23, Cas was left with nothing, demonstrated visually by the wound going dark:

For a “sequence of events” series, [look here](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D180%26page%3D14&t=ZWZjZTdlOWM1ZTdlMGUwZTFjYTFkZDYxNmEyN2E5YjgwOWNiMTg2NSxQVHN6UlkwUA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179054803660%2Fmy-question-is-why-did-cas-say-jacks-grace-is&m=1). 

But in 13.23, there was still a lil bit of a glow around Jack’s wound when Lucifer finished:

And again,[ the whole sequence is here](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D309%26page%3D15&t=MWY5ODNkZmI2YmQ4YTdjZDRkY2E2MDhkNDI3N2JhMDk1NTJjMDI3NCxQVHN6UlkwUA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179054803660%2Fmy-question-is-why-did-cas-say-jacks-grace-is&m=1), but the next image is Luci healing that wound.

There was speculation from the moment it aired that Jack might still be able to regenerate his grace from that, when Cas couldn’t and had been rendered completely human. We were left wondering why Lucifer would’ve left Jack with any grace at all if his intent was simply to kill Jack anyway. Maybe he’d intended to take Jack away and try and talk him around to siding with him anyway, because Luci was NOT expecting Sam Winchester to interfere and get dragged along with them to that church. He used the situation to his advantage, offering to save one of them– whichever one would kill the other. So it was cruel and manipulative, but was not part of his original plan.

Did Lucifer deliberately leave enough grace for Jack to recover to his old power level, planning to kill him only if Jack didn’t take his side? Or did Lucifer intend to leave him alive as a grace milk cow, in case his reservoir ever need topping off again? I mean, could be? We just don’t know.

But we ALSO don’t know if Cas’s guess is correct, or if it does regenerate will it ever be the same as it was before? I mean, we know Cas’s grace never recovered to what it was before after Metatron burned the vast majority of it out working the angel fall spell. But Jack isn’t even an angel. He’s a different species entirely, and I don’t even think the angels know the full scope of his potential power (they clearly didn’t back in s12), or how something like this could potentially affect him.

I don’t think it works the same for a nephilim as it does for an angel, and I’ve heard enough stray comments (like the bts pranking comments I heard at NJ Con, about Alex falling down or fainting a lot, and J2M dogpiling him when it happens, implying that Jack is gonna be having some physical health type issues possibly related to the state of his grace…) to wonder if things are going to go as smoothly as just waiting for Jack’s powers to come back like an angel would.

From the promo videos, we have a shot of Rowena standing over Jack lying in bed, working some sort of magic on him, and I’m wondering if this is going to be in an episode where we learn the state of his grace, you know? Rowena’s got a bit of experience with grace-related magic (holding the portal open with her own magic in 13.22). So I’m assuming this will involve some sort of grace-related health issue.

But honestly, yeah, we have no idea how nephilim grace would behave differently from angel grace. We know Jack would’ve been potentially more powerful than Lucifer due to the combination of grace and soul. We believe that he was left with a shard of that grace that may or may not regenerate on its own. Or it’s possible because of the nature of a nephilim that residual glow was purely his human soul left behind, which only glowed differently through a wound like that because of the weapon that made the cut, or the nature of a nephilim’s combined angel/human blended soul/grace, and Lucifer did extract all his mojo’able grace.

At this point, we’ll have to wait for additional canon to get more concrete answers, but I think this covers the extent of the questions that have been raised around this. :)

[spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester)[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim)

 

Oct 20, 2018

11 notes

Transcript of a chat today with [@generationbridge](https://tmblr.co/mltfGo0u50U4LpCKVQ9VEXg) (aka angstphilosophy in my chattybubbles), mostly for my personal reference because of course I need to file all the theories about angels and vessels and possession and grace vs souls and all that stuff… Under a cut because this is mostly just to put a pin in it rather than suggesting it is The One True Theory of Everything or something like that. This is just because I am the dragon hoarder of angel metaphysics on this show…

angstphilosophy  
aww yis jimmy …influencing (>.>) Cas to eventually Go For It  
Today at 10:52 AM

mittensmorgul  
:D  
Jimmy had a very happy (i.e. the only canon soulmates relationship in the entire series happy) life with Amelia.  
Cas would’ve picked up on those strong human feelings of Love, like Hannah picked up on her vessel Caroline’s  
unlike Hannah, Cas is now alone in his vessel, and he LIKES humans and being human himself  
Today at 5:05 PM

angstphilosophy  
He’s given an opportunity and took it  
So now we get something like this

angstphilosophy  
That’s actually… an intriguing thought if Jimmy gave Cas a perspective on romantic love

angstphilosophy  
(Or any kind of love)

angstphilosophy  
…but then there’s a lot of questions on how much “self” an angel has and all of the cases involving possessions thus far

mittensmorgul  
well we know that Cas’s sympathy toward humanity and love (as much as an angel can) for all of creation goes back way before Dean ever came to be  
but looking at the apocalypse through Jimmy Novak’s “gel insert” filter would’ve covered it all in a very specific shade of what love is, and what one should be willing to sacrifice for family  
like Jimmy DEMANDING Cas leave Claire and take HIM instead, so claire could have a shot at a normal life. He would give everything for his loved ones  
which is… very cas-like  
but maybe not BECAUSE of jimmy, but what made Jimmy Cas’s perfect vessel in the first place? Maybe this sort of sympathetic resonance in who they are and who they would choose to be

angstphilosophy  
Maybe it’s not about how much the vessel has an effect on the Angel but their comparability?  
How much they resonance as you said…

mittensmorgul  
That  
yes

angstphilosophy  
Resonate* geez >.>

angstphilosophy  
I kind of thought it was like that when I saw Nick killing Arty, cause let’s be honest, Lucifer has v poor emotional displacement over daddy issues  
Nick himself is emotionally unstable

mittensmorgul  
I know that people will object to this theory or read at face value, because what, then, does that say about SAM?  
And I’ll tell you…

angstphilosophy  
bfkfjfjfnfnnfjdndnnfbd

mittensmorgul  
remember what it took for Heaven and Hell to interfere with the Winchesters from more than a decade before they were even BORN?

angstphilosophy  
(Well to be fair Michael Just Possessed Dean so)

mittensmorgul  
How Sam was chaperoned by demons throughout his life?  
How his mother was murdered and his father driven mad with revenge, keeping him isolated from Normal Society?

angstphilosophy  
Ai ya…

mittensmorgul  
How he was fed demon blood as an infant to magnify that feeling of isolation? Making him feel like a freak even in  his own family?  
then the “powers”  
born of that demon blood tain  
taint*  
making him wonder if he was evil, and having a DEMON (ruby) hold his hand and convince him he was saving the world, all the while tearing it to pieces?  
THE GUILT  
The trauma  
never feeling worthy or pure

angstphilosophy  
HHHHHHHH

mittensmorgul  
just so Lucifer would  have a Perfect Vessel?  
AND STILL! standing at that Final Battle, despite the prophesy made at the beginning of time that had led to this moment, Lucifer (influenced by Sam) stood there and said, “We don’t have to do this”  
right before Sam broke through Lucifer’s control and flung them all into the cage.  
Lucifer succumbed to Sam’s will. He was tainted by Sam’s will, and Sam won.  
So that’s how this “resonance” theory still applies without vilifying Sam.

angstphilosophy  
Yes…

mittensmorgul  
Cas spent EONS, since the dawn of time, being told that Angels Don’t Want To Be Human. That Human Things are only for humans, and Angels shouldn’t want to “lower” themselves to experience fleeting human feelings. Despite having wanted them all along, or at least SYMPATHIZED with them all along, and been curious about them.  
But those feelings he experienced from Jimmy had to have influenced the DRASTIC SHIFT in perspective he underwent in s4.

[filed for future reference purposes and not intended as meta in any way](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/filed-for-future-reference-purposes-and-not-intended-as-meta-in-any-way) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [vessel resonance theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessel-resonance-theory) [unedited rambling nonsense mostly](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/unedited-rambling-nonsense-mostly)

 

[Oct 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179259979510/platinum-zero-replied-to-your-post-transcript-of-a)

8 notes

[platinum-zero](https://platinum-zero.tumblr.com/) replied to your [post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179258054750/transcript-of-a-chat-today-with-generationbridge)  _[Transcript of a chat today with @generationbridge…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179258054750/transcript-of-a-chat-today-with-generationbridge)_

> This is cool and all but how does dean “resonate with michael?”

He doesn’t. Not really. Even “our” Michael was smugly confident that Dean would say yes because it was “the right thing to do.” Or he would follow orders. Or they could manipulate him via Zachariah’s shenanigans. Or they could just.. torment him into saying yes. Resurrect his half-brother and use him as bait. Dean was never gonna say yes to Michael, until he felt he had no other choice, you know?

And this Alternate Universe Michael, who had zero connection with Dean, from a universe where Dean wasn’t the fated True Vessel (or at least he didn’t exist in that universe and Michael didn’t seem fussed about it over there). Which is the whole point… Michael is basically the antithesis of Dean. But there was still a bit of Dean “influencing” Michael’s persona while he was wearing Dean, you know? Like personality bleed between people who are very close and spend a lot of time together, which angels seem particularly vulnerable to because they’ve spent a very long time thinking they’re above human feelings and things. (until they get a taste of them…)

eta: like I said in the original post, this was nothing more than a collection of stray thoughts anyway, which means I only made it into a post in the first place so I’d have it for my personal records. This is not, and was never intended to be any sort of meta, or an essay on My Final Opinion on the matter, you know? Stray thoughts are just that… maybe useful down the road or maybe trash. We just don’t know yet, but I wanted to remember I had these thoughts just in case they are ever made relevant by canon. (I mean I even tagged it “unedited rambling nonsense” so I honestly do not encourage people to actually adopt this theory for themselves)

[platinum-zero](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/platinum-zero) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [vessel resonance theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessel-resonance-theory) [unedited rambling nonsense mostly](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/unedited-rambling-nonsense-mostly)

 

[Oct 26, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179443018585/hi-i-consider-you-to-be-one-of-the-most-well)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi, I consider you to be one of the most well versed in canon meta writers here, so I was wondering if you could possibly clear something up for me. Cas keeps saying he didn’t go to save Dean bc Michael would sense him. But they took Cas all those times they went after Lucifer with no thought about that even though Lucifer had all of his powers too. Is there some past canon that supports this? Bc while I am interested in where the season is going it kind of keeps annoying/nagging at me. Thanks!**

Well, this AU version of Michael is not entirely exactly like our version, which Lucifer himself lampshaded way back in 13.07 (which I think not a lot of people watched because it was Thanksgiving, and I don’t know how many people have gone back and realized it was an important episode to the mytharc stuff).

Silly me, I went to the transcript to pull a quote, and it’s like… that’s what the entire episode was about. How much more powerful that Michael was, how easily he cracked into Lucifer’s head, how he used his power to lay waste to that whole world, and his absolute horror at the thought that Michael was gonna be popping through a rift any second now to destroy this world.

Not to mention that after the end of s13, all of them had spent more time there and had a chance to see Michael in his own element there. Jack was there for MONTHS with Mary, and had been studying Michael and planning how to kill him (when Jack had powers, that is…). He KNOWS what Michael is capable of, and so do all the AU hunters.

AU Michael has been built up over the last season as something even more powerful than “our Michael,” and only matched in power by Lucifer after he consumed Jack’s grace.

And in the flashback when Michael was talking to Kaia tonight, he said something to the effect that he had sensed her power, and that’s why he’d sought her out. At first, I think he just wanted her to join his army, but then he got a taste of her spear and was like NOPE I JUST NEED THE BIG OWIE STICK.

I also assume you’re referring to “going after Lucifer” back during the apocalypse, right? When there were angels like… everywhere? I mean you couldn’t swing a stick without hitting an angel back then, but now? There’s like nine angels, and seven of them are locked up in Heaven. I think Michael might notice if one of them were trying to sneak up on him…

I mean, he found Jo in 14.01 because she’s literally like the only other angel on Earth right now. It couldn’t have been hard to sense one angel in a sea of not-angels. He would’ve seen Cas coming from like 50 miles away. And some (at the time) unknown mysterious creature that had the power to WOUND Michael badly enough that it left that big ugly scar on Dean? Yeah, that creature might sense angels coming too…

[spn 14.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.03) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [i find it fascinating how folks get fixated on stuff like this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-find-it-fascinating-how-folks-get-fixated-on-stuff-like-this) [and i'm kinda glad because i love having to think about it hard enough to explain it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27m-kinda-glad-because-i-love-having-to-think-about-it-hard-enough-to-explain-it) [seriously i can probably explain anything on this dumb show :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-i-can-probably-explain-anything-on-this-dumb-show-%3AP)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Oct 26, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179464598695/hi-the-why-didnt-cas-go-with-them-to-save-dean)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi, the “why didn’t Cas go with them to save Dean” anon here. When I said “Cas went with them after Lucifer” I was also referring to s12 like in 12x07 and 12x08. Thank you for clarifying that Michael is just established as more powerful, but why would Lucifer be weaker than an AU archangel when their only difference is what universe they’re from? Why are AU archangels more powerful? Sorry if I made this too complicated, I just struggle with following the canon for magical powers sometimes.:P**

I think you’re expecting a deeper canonical reasoning for some of this stuff that canon itself is basically just laying out in concrete terms here. Sometimes canon just Does That. Canon is not required to explain or justify itself when the explanation or justification is just… irrelevant to the larger narrative. This is a really difficult thing to explain, because this isn’t a value judgement on a character or a plot point or viewers who headcanoned something very different before canon laid down a New Fact. This is just… objectively what canon does sometimes. The trick for viewers is to use these new fact to readjust previously held headcanons and perceptions to fit with what canon is telling us is actually reality.

Why are AU archangels more powerful? Because canon said so. Because 13.07 hammered that point home. But okay, even if you accept that, and you still want an explanation as to  _why_? Well, sorry, canon hasn’t given us one.

We can apply headcanon to this, look at the canon we already have in the past about archangels in our universe, and attempt to deduce the reasons for the difference, but honestly we don’t have enough information about the AU to say for certain. We know that universe is different from ours in fundamental ways. Sam and Dean were not the end-all, be-all apocalypse vessels for that universe, you know? Or else the angels would’ve made sure John was resurrected to father them into existence with Mary one way or another, and the apocalypse as it was prophesied in OUR universe would’ve marched on the same way.

(we know both Zachariah and Lucifer threatened to just keep bringing Sam and Dean back to life when they threatened to kill themselves to stop the apocalypse, so if Sam and Dean were the destined vessels in the AU it seems like the angels would’ve just… done the thing and MADE it happen, you know? Something is fundamentally different there on a cosmic level)

Not to mention the way AU Michael, in direct contrast to OUR Michael, has this disdain for God. Our Michael was trying to be the dutiful son despite God’s abandonment, but AU Michael made his own plans instead, almost as if his experience with God was very different. Which is interesting in its own right, bringing up the notion that maybe God really is absent in their universe, and what that might mean on a cosmic scale. Even if these thoughts don’t lead us to a concrete, absolutely solid explanation for why AU Michael is more powerful, they give support to the notion that if canon unequivocally states that is a fact, we’re given leeway to accept it as fact.

Sometimes canon requires us to apply critical thinking skills and make these sorts of leaps of faith, to fill in the gaps however we see fit in the moment. Just because we’re being asked to build the mental bridge and trust it’s solid enough to cross the divide doesn’t mean the bridge doesn’t exist.

But this does bring me to one of the dangers of the viewer attempting to fill those narrative chasms in with concrete, rather than just trusting the invisible bridge. I’m gonna call it Headcanon Fatigue. Bear with me, because one of my favorite things to do with canon is to attempt to explain it all with one Grand Unified Theory of Everything (which, heck, is why s11 is still my favorite meta-wise, because it DID solidify at least the cosmic-level [Grand Unification via Love Theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Grand-Unification-via-Love-Theory), which honestly is still playing out in aftereffects). But often canon isn’t ASKING us to fill in all the canyons yet. It WANTS us to slowly construct a latticework of intricate bridges and stairways to navigate the canyons and explore all the nooks and crevices, but to not become so distracted by what we find to assume we’ve actually explored the entire canyon as a whole or understood the tiny fraction of what we’ve explored correctly, you know?

Like the whole Angel Vessel Consent Issue floating around a lot of the speculation I’ve seen about Michael and Dean lately.

A lot of that speculation was based on the single case of possession of Donnie Finneman in 5.03, and I think it leaves PLENTY of questions and like… a grand total of zero answers. So the fact that Dean wasn’t rendered comatose by Michael’s possession? NOT BREAKING THAT OLD CANON, because what we saw back then was unreliable at best, and an outright deception at worst. Deception that’s only been compounded by years of headcanon being built up around a single incident in canon that we never got a real explanation for.

Let’s compare the actual FACTS of Donnie Finneman’s case with easily misconstrued opinions versus various headcanons I’ve seen solidify into concrete, inflexible assumptions over the years:

Donnie, the vessel of Raphael, was the mechanic at a gas station where a skirmish between angels and demons had broken out”

**FRAMINGHAM** : Would not have believed my eyes if I hadn’t seen it myself. We’re talking a riot. Full scale.  
 **DEAN** : How many?  
 **FRAMINGHAM** : Thirty, forty, in all-out kill-or-be-killed combat?

So there was a generalized riot, then a sudden pure, bright white explosion, and the only one left alive in the middle of that was the mechanic, Donnie, who Cas immediately identifies as Raphael taking his vessel.

But… what led to Donnie saying yes? And WHY were those angels and demons skirmishing at that specific gas station? And WHY did Raphael chose that time and place to take his vessel?

Because we have to assume that Donnie was in the middle of that battle, you know? Can you even imagine just being at work doing an oil change or something, and suddenly there’s this all-out riot between supernatural beings all around you? Like, seriously, that would probably be enough for ME to want to say yes to a cosmic being offering me protection or whatever in exchange for a yes there…

So was that entire scenario arranged by Raphael specifically to secure consent from his vessel? I mean, that’s one logical possibility.

Now let’s look at Raphael for a moment, throughout canon and not just at this one episode. Let’s remember what he thinks of humanity in general, and what his reasons for wanting to restart the apocalypse in s6 were. He HATED humanity. He was TIRED of playing that role of watching over them. He was BORED with humanity, and just wanted it all to be over. He wasn’t passionate about remaking the world in his own image the way Lucifer was, or the way AU Michael seems to be now. He’s just  _done_.

So with that knowledge,  _why would Raphael even care about taking a vessel at all_? What was his purpose? Why did he bother to arrange to have Donnie reduced to the ready and waiting “open phone line” of a practically empty vessel Cas and Dean saw in the hospital? What exactly was that entire situation about?

Because  _that’s_  what makes no sense with the rest of canon, you know?

So I suggest that rather than break your brain trying to resolve all of extant canon with that singular anomaly, you look at the entire scenario from the opposite perspective. Canon has been repeatedly inviting us to do this, after all.

It’s like… we aren’t so petty as to insist that the mission Dean and Sam set out on to kill Lilith at the beginning of s4 was actually the true mission they SHOULD have been going on to stop the apocalypse, you know? The entire season was a misdirect focused around the goal of killing Lilith under the assumption that SHE would start the apocalypse and they needed to stop her from doing that, but in reality she WOULD start the apocalypse–  _with her carefully planned death at the exact right time and place_. Sam and Dean (and Cas) were played for fools in the end, and everything they thought had been true had been overturned and the truth was only uncovered at the last minute, when it was too late to change course.

And I think a lot of the assumptions about archangel possession are based on those early (and deliberately misleading) assumptions based on Donnie Finneman’s case. Like… we take Cas’s word that Michael would leave Dean in a worse state than Raphael had left Donnie… but  _why do we accept that as a literal, surface-level assessment based on concrete fact_? Because Cas said so? Cas also said they needed to kill Lilith at one point in order to stop her from breaking the final seal, but we later learned he’d been lied to about that, as well. I mean, Cas asked DEAN for help in uncovering Raphael in 5.03, because CAS DIDN’T HAVE ANSWERS AND NEEDED DEAN TO HELP “TALK TO PEOPLE” TO GET THEM. So assuming Cas’s guesses there, or Cas’s warnings to Dean about worst case scenarios of what MIGHT happen if he said yes to Michael can be seen on just that level– since we know Cas is willing to lay down EVERYTHING in order to stop Dean from saying yes in the end. I mean, hello 5.18.

But now that we have that said, let’s go back and try and guess what happened to Donnie in the first place. Was he somehow gravely injured during the skirmish that led to Raphael showing up and coercing a yes out of him? I mean, we just learned the sorts of torture Zachariah was willing to impart on Dean in order to coerce a yes out of him in 5.01, and in 5.03 we also learn the sorts of trickery Lucifer will resort to in order to coerce a yes out of Sam, and in 5.04 we learn the lengths Zachariah is willing to go to get that yes  _again_ , and we learn again in 5.16 just how far Heaven will go… so why not apply that to Raphael, as well?

What if Donnie’s semi-comatose state was a direct result of injuries he sustained in that skirmish? What if Raphael had arranged that just so he could make Donnie into his notion of a “perfect vessel?” I.e. one not encumbered with an annoying human consciousness he’d have to deal with? Like Michael securing that yes from John in 5.13 (and in 1978), waiting until he was gravely injured and promising to make everything right? To save his wife and heal his body in exchange for that yes?

Why do we assume Raphael used any different tactic to secure Donnie’s yes?

Like… “I can relieve your suffering, deliver your soul to eternal rest and peace where your pain will end, if you allow me the use of your vessel.” If I’d been Donnie in that state? I’d have been tempted to agree.

So why do we headcanon that Donnie was Fine And Dandy before Raphael possessed him? And that the results in that hospital were only the result of Raphael’s possession? Because of that one offhand comment from Cas?

**DEAN** : I take it that’s not Raphael anymore.  
 **CASTIEL** : Just an empty vessel.  
 **DEAN** : So is this what I’m looking at if Michael jumps in my bones?  
 **CASTIEL** : No, not at all. Michael is much more powerful. It’ll be far worse for you.

But we assume Dean was referring to the physical state Raphael left Donnie in here. So…  _why do we assume that Castiel, an angel, was also referring to the physical state of Donnie’s empty vessel with that comment_?

Nothing in canon is suggesting that’s the correct interpretation of that scenario. In fact, current canon is actively refuting it. And it HAS been actively refuting it since Sam first said yes to Lucifer and was not rendered a blubbering vegetative lump of sasquatch in the aftermath, you know? NONE of the canon between 5.03 and 14.03 has supported that assumption that it was only Raphael’s power that rendered Donnie in such a state.

So that’s like… the opposite problem to the one you’re having making that leap onto a solid surface that canon is insisting is real, even if we can’t see the support structure holding it in place. We’re not being asked to pave over everything between point A and point B here. In fact, I’d suggest that attempting to pave that road could be as misguided as assuming that all the archangel possession canon post 5.03 must somehow support the headcanons that formed around Raphael’s possession of Donne Finneman. Because that’s not how canon works.

Sometimes it’s asking you to build bridges, and sometimes it’s just telling you the ground is solid, and going poking under your feet for the support structure is just gonna lead to you toppling headfirst into the ravine. Not fun at all. :P

*scrolls back up to reread your original question and wonders where the heck I took a wrong turn… probably Albuquerque…*

[spn 14.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.03) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 5.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.04) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [Grand Unification via Love Theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Grand-Unification-via-Love-Theory) [canon vs headcanon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/canon-vs-headcanon) [wtf happened here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wtf-happened-here...) [i have a massive migraine... i'm blaming this whole post on that...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-have-a-massive-migraine...-i%27m-blaming-this-whole-post-on-that...) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Oct 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179472735265/none-of-the-canon-between-503-and-1403-has)

17 notes

**Anonymous asked: "NONE of the canon between 5.03 and 14.03 has supported that assumption that it was only Raphael’s power that rendered Donnie in such a state.” What about Michael saying to Dean in 5.13 "You know, unlike my brothers, I won't leave you a drooling mess when I'm done wearing you.”**

Was that canonically because the mere act of possession renders vessels a drooling mess? Or because “his brothers,” and honestly he just means Raphael here because Lucifer canonically did not leave Sam a drooling mess either (unless you consider the full extent of the damage to Sam’s soul that was attributed to his suffering while in the cage actively being tortured by Lucifer and the state that left him in in 7.17 to be a direct result of possession, which canonically it is not)… anyway back to the previous sentence already in progress:

Or was it because his “brothers” deliberately crafted their vessels to be that way? The same way Lucifer used to require his vessels to drink gallons of demon blood in order to prepare them for his possession, as a “corrupting force” in their bodies?

Because Raphael is the only angel in canon who has left his vessel in that state. We don’t know the state of Gabriel’s vessel (or even if it was a standard vessel rather than a construct Loki created for him in his own image, as 13.20 has led us to believe). We don’t know the state of Raphael’s second vessel since she was destroyed with him. We don’t know the state of Uriel’s 1978 vessel that Anna had tried to trick into killing Mary and John, as well as Sam and Dean for her.

We know that Lucifer burned through a boatload of vessels in early s12 while looking for one that could contain him. We don’t know what Nick’s status was after his original possession ended in 5.22 (and really, how much of that is really Nick now after everything he’s been through?). We were left to wonder if he even survived that possession at all, considering the state of his vessel… much like the Vince Vincente vessel just crumbled to nothing when Lucifer fled it in 12.07, or the Archbishop’s vessel he left in 12.08 when the President said yes to him. Strangely enough, he left the president entirely intact… And it’s implied he slaughtered the Archbishop and his staff  _for the fun of it_ because they’d been dumb enough to try to exorcise him.

 Every single other angel we’ve ever seen voluntarily leave a vessel has left their vessel mostly physically intact. I mean… There’s nothing in canon to suggest that an angel damaging their vessel in the way Donnie was damaged wasn’t  _intentionally_  done by that angel to make their vessel more comfortable for THEM to wear.

Canon has always left this as a valid potential interpretation, and since they’re now showing us Dean (in addition to Sam, Cas, Jimmy, John Winchester, Caroline… name any other character who’s served as an angel vessel) has been undamaged physically (aside from the scar, which had absolutely nothing to do with Michael’s possession and everything to do with being stabbed with a giant meat fork) by his possession by AU Michael, isn’t it easier to accept that this is the read we’re being asked to make, rather than to nitpick and fight against everything just to maintain a headcanon that conflicts with current canon and yet can be explained by digging in a slightly different direction?

ETA: to remind everyone of Benjamin in 12.10, too. He might not have been as powerful as an archangel, but he’d been in the same vessel for  _a very long time_  and carried on a loving relationship with her throughout. Even what’s implied to be centuries of possession did her no harm.

[spn 5.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.13) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [spn 12.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.07) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [sorry my hobby is dismantling the concept of plot holes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sorry-my-hobby-is-dismantling-the-concept-of-plot-holes) [because 99 times out of 100 they're not plot holes they're headcanon holes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-99-times-out-of-100-they%27re-not-plot-holes-they%27re-headcanon-holes)


	27. Chapter 27

[Feb 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156854813910/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he)

195 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Ishim took Cas's phone? Could he have snuck it while Cas was healing him? If Cas left it lying around (?) he should have been able to hear it still.**

[thevioletcaptain](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/post/156832003443/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156831522785/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he):
>
>> Oh gosh, yeah, my first thought when Cas wasn’t answering was that Ishim took it. Then it’s almost like Cas could… maybe sense that Dean was trying to call him… maybe he picked up on a… (no mittens don’t say it) a sort of maybe  _longing_ sort of feeling… or just an unsettling concern, and felt all of his pockets wondering what happened to his phone.
>> 
>> Ishim (while doing weird angel calisthenics) advises him, “You’ll have to keep better track of your things, Castiel.”
>> 
>> And gosh that’s ominous in hindsight.
>> 
>> We just saw Cas incredibly weakened by healing this asshat who’s now showing off and demonstrating the sort of vigor he apparently hadn’t felt “in a millennium.” We didn’t see what happened immediately after Cas healed him, or how Cas ended up across the room from Ishim. We instead cut to Sam and Dean’s conversation with Lily, where we all learned the truth about Ishim and what he’d done to her.
>> 
>> I think Ishim wanted to make Lily his possession. Earlier in the episode, back at the diner, he’d listed Sam and Dean as essentially Castiel’s property, on par with his trench coat. I mean, this is how he views humans. So the line about keeping track of his things? Eep. He means Dean.
>> 
>> Because Ishim KNEW what Lily would tell Sam and Dean, and he knew that Cas weakened was to his benefit. It makes his pushups and stretches look like he’s literally warming up to fight, and is already planning to kill Dean and Sam when they return, before they can report the truth back to Cas.
>> 
>> Taking Cas’s phone would just ensure they couldn’t break the news to Cas before they could physically return to the church, giving Ishim a chance to take them all out. Weakened Cas, and two measly, powerless humans.
>> 
>> Yeah. Right. I guess he hasn’t watched the show before. :P
>> 
>> Also, side note… I let the episode keep playing after I rewatched the phone scene, and I finally remembered to make a note of this line:
>> 
>> Cas: Why would she lie?  
> Ishim: She’s human. Kinda what they do.
>> 
>> Because damn if that doesn’t make me think of 5.03. Because Ishim’s partly right there. When humans want something really, really bad… we lie.
>> 
>> But Cas also knows that it’s a little more complicated than that now. The world’s not black and white to him anymore. There’s not just good and bad, angel vs human, right and wrong. And often the reasons behind the acts are just as important as the acts themselves.
>> 
>> Plus Ishim is a terrible liar. :P
>> 
>> Second side note that came to mind while I was typing the first side note (I swear I know I have a problem with digression but I can’t help it sometimes):
>> 
>> It’s interesting how the tables have turned a little bit here from the Men of Letters thinking of Cas as merely some tool, an attack dog for the Winchesters, while Ishim thinks of the Winchesters as adjunct tools belonging to Cas and little more than trained monkeys (or possibly attack dogs…).
> 
> “Then it’s almost like Cas could… maybe sense that Dean was trying to call him… maybe he picked up on a… (no mittens don’t say it) a sort of maybe  _longing_ sort of feeling”
> 
> ….in all seriousness, though, longing the only plausible reason for why Cas suddenly started looking for his phone when Dean started calling him. 
> 
> That longing retcon really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Dean does his little “come on come on come on” while the phone rings twice, and the immediate next scene is Cas acting all sulky and grumpy and “Oh, goody,” at Ishim, and then without any apparent practical reason for doing so, suddenly patting himself down in search of his phone. Like he just ~knew~ it was ringing somehow. 

Wait… I already said all this stuff. I’m gonna keep saying it again, using different words for clarity’s sake. :P

Cas couldn’t hear his phone ringing, yet it appeared that while Dean was trying to call him to warn him about Ishim (and only let the phone ring TWICE) Dean was sort of “praying” to Cas, or at least his “ _come on come on come on”_ muttered under his breath was enough to constitute a prayer in the style of Dean Winchester who has invoked “get your feathery ass down here” and “you got your ears on breaker breaker” as forms of formal prayer.

Yet, still, even with Dean trying to contact Cas WITH INTENT, and to deliver a SPECIFIC WARNING MESSAGE ABOUT CAS’S IMMEDIATE SAFETY, the only thing that seemed to get through to Cas was this odd feeling that he’s somehow misplaced his phone…

And it makes me wonder if Cas maybe CAN’T fully hear prayers anymore.

Yes he heard that screaming call on angel radio about the nephilim, and he heard Benjamin’s plea for help (which seemed to work as some sort of spell more than a prayer).

Combined with how weakened Cas became from healing Ishim, and how much he’s been relying on more “human” hunting methods lately, I’m wondering just how damaged his grace might be, or how limited he may be in terms of his mojo, and what that might mean for him.

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor) [it's not a shippy thing it's an 'are you an angel or a man' thing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-not-a-shippy-thing-it%27s-an-%27are-you-an-angel-or-a-man%27-thing) [but in this case it's probably a little bit of a shippy thing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-in-this-case-it%27s-probably-a-little-bit-of-a-shippy-thing) [i have too many tags for this stuff >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-have-too-many-tags-for-this-stuff-%3E.%3E)


	28. Chapter 28

[May 21, 2014](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/86413814935/things-im-thinking-about-after-the-supernatural)

2 notes

Things I’m thinking about after the Supernatural S9 finale: HERE BE THE SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

There are differences between Dean and Cain, and I think those differences will make all the…difference…in the end. *sorry writerly brain overwhelmed by thinkiness and unable to be more eloquent atm*

  * Crowley said that Cain killed HIMSELF with the first blade, but Dean was killed by METADOUCHE with an ANGEL BLADE.
  * Cain killed his brother, while Dean SAVED his own brother.
  * The angel Cain had whispering in his ear: Lucifer. The angel Dean has whispering in his ear: Cas.\



Also, Sam knows how to cure a demon now. Since he’s been purged of all the crap he took on during the trials, he has a legit shot at curing Dean. That is, if the Mark will let Dean be cured. And this is where I think Cas’s dwindling grace will come in to play. Crowley hinted early in the episode that the mark CAN be removed, when he asked Dean if he really WANTED the mark gone with a *wink wink nudge nudge* sort of expression on his face. I think we’re supposed to conclude that it CAN be removed, but it might take some combination of that shattered Word of God (the angel tablet), the shattered prophet (maybe Kevin’s ghost again?), and the shattered angel (Cas, duh).

I’m just leaving this here to remind myself that everything hasn’t permanently been shot to hell, and that there’s plenty of hope. Too bad we have 145 days before we find out what happens next.

[spn meta-ish](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish) [spn spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-spoilers) [season 9 finale spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/season-9-finale-spoilers) [supernatural spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-spoilers) [is that tagged enough for spoilers for everyone?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/is-that-tagged-enough-for-spoilers-for-everyone%3F) [consider this post my version of huddling in a corner feeding chocolate to my own soul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/consider-this-post-my-version-of-huddling-in-a-corner-feeding-chocolate-to-my-own-soul) [spn 9.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.23) [spn s10 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10-speculation) [sacrificial victim of the eventual s10 plot accordion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sacrificial-victim-of-the-eventual-s10-plot-accordion) [soul-grace melt cure theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/soul-grace-melt-cure-theory) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)


	29. Chapter 29

# Older than Souls

Oct 16, 2015

29 notes

Well, I started adding a comment on to [THIS POST](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/131292147977/yarnyfan-lurea-jensensitive-how-does-she), but I realized I was writing a novel that was only peripherally related to it… So I decided to start a new post rather than totally corrupt that other one. Pffft.

Anyway, this sort of went off on a really broad tangent, so I’m putting it under a cut because nobody probably wants to read my thinky thoughts about the origins of all the energy in the universe, and what happens to monster souls when they die in Purgatory, and God as Scarface. Okay. I should call this my Grand Unification Theory of Supernatural. It’s about 90% crap, but I like it anyway.

Hmm. Theoretically, energy (i.e. souls, grace, power, etc.) can neither be created nor destroyed, but exists in flux, being traded between forces that control it.

Also theoretically, at the beginning of Everything, before “God” gathered enough energy to split himself out of the Darkness (because before Light there was Darkness, biblically speaking, but also before the big bang there was an infinitely dense singularity, to put it in terms of physics), he (for ease of differentiation from the darkness, which I’ll call “she” here) amassed a certain quantity of this energy and forced the split, generating the universe as we know it today. Everything that’s happened since then has been a struggle to retain control of the largest portion of energy possible.

*spends five minutes imagining this young version of God as Tony Montana*

When he gathered enough, he was able to spin off a few helpers (the archangels), and lock up his nemesis, his rival for control of the power, and hide the key. If we’re assuming that Death and God came into being at around the same time, I’d like to propose that Death only popped into existence because the moment God split from the Darkness, the universe went from a simple singularity where all potentials existed, into a duality. God brought forth “life” so the only way to balance that was by bringing forth the opposite, which in this case is “death.” (think of this as the first Inner Key of Oz reference if that helps).

But we also don’t have a definitive explanation for the leviathans. Perhaps they weren’t really God’s first creation, but a creation of the Darkness during their initial struggle. Just as God created creatures of light, the archangels, to battle her, perhaps she created a consuming force to counteract that light. Or vice-versa, and perhaps the archangels were created AFTER God had some practice locking creatures of darkness away in alternate dimensions created for that express purpose. Hence, Purgatory could’ve been a “practice run” for building a vault big and strong enough to hold the Darkness.

But when you’ve built something large enough to contain the Darkness, which we have to imagine is a force equal in power to God, it’s gonna need a big lock and a big key. And in the case of the Darkness, a Really Bright Light (Lucifer, anyone?). We’ve already been shown that the Darkness is repulsed or burned away by Holy Fire (another pretty bright light), so imbuing the locking mechanism with the most powerful light God could conjure seemed like a dandy idea in the beginning.

Over time, as God got things organized and the universe started unfolding, with no competition for “power,” God ran a monopoly. He had a LOT of power to work with, and decided to create more cute little helper angels. Why the hell not? The universe was his playground. The game got more sophisticated and he eventually spun off humans. I’m not sure where “Eve” in SPN canon fits into this picture, if she was just some oddly-shaped blob of energy that God lost track of along the way and started amassing more power than was practical, and therefore began playing her own creation games with, or if the creation of “monsters” in SPN canon can be traced to some other event (such as Nephilim being the product of angels and humans, perhaps monsters with above-human powers were simply aberrations caused by other similar means?). It’s not relevant to my point, though. It’s enough to know they all exist.

But these creatures he created  _did_  eventually die (because hello, Death! can’t have life without death!), they needed a place to go, because they were still bits of energy that “belonged” to God. He couldn’t have those rogue monsters going around snapping up his energy, so they were relegated to Purgatory, as well. It was already there. It was just convenient. The human souls were brought to Heaven, reunited with God’s power grid.

But what of all the souls/monsters/etc. in Purgatory? They did a lot of fighting and killing from what we saw in early S8. If they died there, their energy still had to go  _somewhere_. Perhaps it was returned to the Void, or wherever the Darkness was locked up? Angels who died may also have been sent to what Billie the Reaper referred to as “the Empty.” But what if it’s  _not_  empty? What if it’s just really, really Dark? What if all those souls, all that  _power_ , had been funneled into The Darkness since the creation of the universe? What if she’s been consuming power and growing stronger since the day she was locked up?

If her growing strength was enough to eventually overpower Lucifer and lure him from God’s service, no wonder he created his own power base? Hell, and the human souls he managed to turn to his cause, which became demons. He literally took pieces of God’s power for his own, like some sort of cosmic currency exchange.

We’ve already been trained to look at souls as a power source that can be tapped into in a very literal way. Cas gobbled up the souls of Purgatory and “fed” off their power. But what happened to those souls he “used up?” Because they can’t simply be burned away to nothing. Their energy had to go  _somewhere_.

Now Amara is eating souls, taking back power that she’d been severed from a long time ago. Basically, regarding Amara’s dietary choices, human souls aren’t “people,” they’re pure power nuggets.

Which is why I’m starting to think that the only way to “defeat” the Darkness isn’t to lock it back up, or “kill it” or whatever. It’s to reunite it with God. Restore balance. Use the Inner Key of Oz on it. Whatever. It’s not the “enemy,” it’s just the other side of the coin. As long as it’s running around loose, though, without that sense of balance, it’s just going to keep devouring everything in sight, hoarding the power. But when you think about it, that’s sort of what God’s been doing since it locked the Darkness up to begin with. If the Darkness is “evil” for what it’s doing now, then isn’t God just as “evil?”

I don’t believe either is evil. They’re just trading little slices of power back and forth.

[spn meta-ish](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass)[and now the darkness](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-the-darkness) [Death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle) [souls are basically currency if you prefer the tidier economic model to the food model of power exchange](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/souls-are-basically-currency-if-you-prefer-the-tidier-economic-model-to-the-food-model-of-power-exchange)[either way amara eating souls is nothing new because the souls are 'human' now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/either-way-amara-eating-souls-is-nothing-new-because-the-souls-are-%27human%27-now) [human or not the soul is still basically a little nuclear reactor of energy that can be traded between larger entities at will](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/human-or-not-the-soul-is-still-basically-a-little-nuclear-reactor-of-energy-that-can-be-traded-between-larger-entities-at-will) [all amara's doing by 'eating' souls is collecting more power](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-amara%27s-doing-by-%27eating%27-souls-is-collecting-more-power) [i really have no idea what happened here this totally went in an unsatisfying direction for me](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-really-have-no-idea-what-happened-here-this-totally-went-in-an-unsatisfying-direction-for-me)[and isn't at all what i started out to write](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-isn%27t-at-all-what-i-started-out-to-write) [but after this much time spent on a thing i sort of feel obligated to post it so here *throws it at tumblr and half hopes tumblr eats it*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-after-this-much-time-spent-on-a-thing-i-sort-of-feel-obligated-to-post-it-so-here-%2Athrows-it-at-tumblr-and-half-hopes-tumblr-eats-it%2A)


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now the Darkness...

#  [Amara is what she eats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/133086044645/amara-is-what-she-eats)

[Nov 12, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/133086044645/amara-is-what-she-eats)

402 notes

[larinah](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/133081426957):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/133080340690):
>
>> I find it interesting that Amara implied she’s seeking out specific characteristics in the souls she’s eating. She told the girl at the beginning that she wanted to be more like her, and then ate her soul, which leads me to believe that she’s gaining something more than pure energy from her diet.
>> 
>> Although the people she leaves soulless still have their memories, they lack the emotional content of those memories. I’m wondering if this is what Amara is absorbing into herself in her attempt to understand her brother’s creation.
>> 
>> **Side note: I definitely don’t believe that Amara and God are literally brother and sister born of the same parents. They are simply the first two entities that sprang from the initial burst of creation, which I keep comparing to the big bang theory, but which I’m now trying to mentally reconcile with the notion of cell division. They started off as one thing which split in half, which became the original duality. The show’s been pounding the notion into our heads for over a year that the only workable solution to a duality is reunification, but that’s been discussed ad infinitum so I’ll just mention it in passing here.**
>> 
>> With Amara’s template for humanity established as Dean Winchester, what about that girl drew Amara to her? All we learned about the girl was that her parents were very controlling, to the point she had to sneak out of the house to even enjoy a snack of junk food without feeling her mother’s judgment. She wasn’t allowed to date, except for a few months during the summer, so essentially she wasn’t allowed to form long-term or significant relationships. 
>> 
>> We’ve seen flashbacks to Dean’s life as a teenager. He had to sneak out of the duties his father imposed on him in order to have a little fun playing a video game. He had one “summer of love” with Robin where he could finally experience what it’s like to be a “real boy” (yes another Pinocchio/puppet reference), but his father put an end to it by dragging him back for a hunt before the relationship really had a chance to really develop. We also know Dean has a very weird relationship with food, and always has. (and very long and excellent metas have been written on the subject, so again, not going into it here).
>> 
>> When Crowley capitulated and brought Amara a “snack,” she told him she wasn’t hungry. I’m betting that’s because she just didn’t have an interest in Crowley’s choice of food.
>> 
>> Amara at first feasted on caretakers: (Jenna who cared for her as an infant, the suburban family of three that Crowley lured her into the van with, her nanny who obviously understood Amara and her needs far better than Crowley did and provided her with much better reading material and care). She found Sydney first, someone who’d tried to show her care, and rewarded her for it until Sydney inadvertently pissed her off, which Amara was so insulted by that she ate her soul anyway. Then again, maybe whatever “bliss” Amara gave to Sydney just made her soul taste better, and her intent was to consume her all along?
>> 
>> Then she sought out Lizzie Borden, and people associated with her. I’m not sure if she did that because of the things she learned from eating Sydney’s soul, or because her original intent had been to learn more about Lizzie Borden herself, but it does seem worth mentioning given Sydney’s connection with the house and the people who owned it. Which is how she met Len almost by accident. Len was just there doing his SUPERFAN thing, and Amara found that interesting enough to want to experience his soul, too.
>> 
>> I don’t think she likes feeding indiscriminately. I think she prefers a particular flavor in the people she eats. (and here I have to mention how I can’t stop comparing this to iZombie, how Liv takes on the personality of the person whose brain she’s eaten most recently for a while. It’s actually a really good comparison to what I believe Amara is getting on a more internalized emotional level from the soul energy she’s eating).
>> 
>> Yes, she’s eaten her way through half of Crowley’s demon servants, but I think demons might provide her some sort of energy or sustenance, they lack that spark of humanity that she gets from eating pure, undemonized human souls. Demons have always been presented as lacking whatever it was that Crowley seemed to gain while he was addicted to human blood, and THAT is what Amara is actually craving.
>> 
>> Back to the “snack” that Crowley brought to Amara, and she rejected. He was wearing a postal service uniform. I think Crowley just yoinked their mailman off the street out of convenience. I know it’s not true, but the stereotype is that civil servants in general are rather soulless individuals who work through the daily grind of endless monotony. They aren’t generally known for their sense of rebellion or adventure. They are staid. They are buttoned down cogs in the big machine. **well, unless they snap and ‘go postal,’ as it were, but that’s another story, and possibly even implied here**
>> 
>> Regardless, I believe Amara is looking for highly specific souls to eat. She’s desperately trying to understand God’s creation, which for her is epitomized in the being of Dean Winchester, and is looking to consume souls that bear some resemblance to his own. She’s fascinated by it. She wants to dissect it and understand it so she can learn to wield it like a weapon against its creator. Dean is her template for the ideal weapon. In his very own words from 10.22, he does, after all, kill gods.
> 
> I hope you don’t mind if I add on to this.  Amara didn’t just take Goldie’s soul, she took some of her clothing:
> 
>   
>    
>    
> 
> 
> Sorry about the low quality of that last one, but Amara was carrying boots when she came back to the asylum and is then wearing them as she leaves.  So at the end of the episode, while she’s shed the military coat, she’s literally walking in Goldie’s shoes.
> 
> The military stuff most definitely reminds me of all the times Dean has been called a soldier.  Goldie’s t-shirt also reminds me of Dean.  The American Eagle symbol with the arrow in its talons in front of sun, moon, and stars, with a plaid shirt over top.
> 
> I also think it was interesting that Goldie said she had to hang out by the tracks to get her “snack on”.  It’s not that she couldn’t eat what she wanted around her mom, it was that her mom judged her for it.  (Sam and Dean have also been shown to judge each other for what they choose to eat and drink.)  Then Amara walks up and eats Goldie’s soul because she, too, has to hang out by the tracks in order to eat what she wants without the judgment of her father figure Crowley.
> 
> Later we see that Metatron is hanging out around the tracks (I knew there had to be a good reason for the train car) in order to get his little bits of reality for the camera.  He nipped that guy’s money while he was at it, sort of like an extra little snack.  Then it was said that Metatron can’t step out of line or all the angels will come down on him.
> 
> They all had to hang around by the train tracks in order to escape judgment and scrutiny for what they were eating or preying on.

[spn 11.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.06) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [spn meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [reblobbed for the excellent addition](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/reblobbed-for-the-excellent-addition) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [and probably a bunch of other tags but i really need to reorganize all my tags anyway *sigh*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-probably-a-bunch-of-other-tags-but-i-really-need-to-reorganize-all-my-tags-anyway-%2Asigh%2A)

 

#  [We’ll always end up here.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/130338999530/well-always-end-up-here)

[Oct 2, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/130338999530/well-always-end-up-here)

106 notes

I’m the last person who would ever suggest we’re getting something like End!Verse, but… I think we’re getting something like End!Verse. Let’s call it End!Verse 2.0. End!Verse 2: Electric Boogaloo. The End!Verse Strikes Back.

The future that Zachariah showed Dean back in 2009 obviously can’t come to pass exactly that way anymore. Canon has rendered that impossible. Croatoan virus hasn’t ravaged the land, because TFW blew it up. Sam and Dean aren’t on the outs, and have spent most of the last five years working together (barring times when they were either soulless or in Purgatory). The Horsemen of the Apocalypse have all been overthrown.

But that last bit there made me think. War was the first Horeseman to go down. His “death” or “depowering” when Dean took his ring didn’t  _end_  war, you know? The world didn’t suddenly turn soft and peaceful. Same with Pestilence and Famine. So why would it be any different for Death?

When Crowley took Dean to meet with Brady in 5.20 (The Devil You Know), it was under the pretense that Brady wanted the Horsemen’s rings back. Brady told Dean that the rings wouldn’t really help him:

> War and famine, even if I could cram the rings back on their bony fingers, I doubt it would do much good. They’re withered husks right now –Fetal position on the floor –All thanks to you. So I don’t want the rings. 

So, they weren’t out of the picture entirely, just sort of useless for the time being. Wherever they were stashed in cold storage, they’ve at at minimum five years to recover their strength, find new “vessels,” etc. And since we were never given reason to believe otherwise, I assume their meatsuits were vessels, the same way all angels and demons need vessels. And if they’ve been recuperating in Hell, then five years of Hell time is what, about 600 years? Hmm. Sounds like a good amount of time to get back in the swing of things, yes?

I have some theories on Death, but first let me get to the whole point of this increasingly off-point meta thingy. Knowing what we do now, five years after Sam flung himself and Lucifer into the cage, I’m curious as to WHO or WHAT was actually controlling Lucifer back in S5.

We’d always been led to believe it was Lucifer himself who rebelled and fell. Then we learned from Cain that Lucifer had given him the Mark. And then we learned from Death what the Mark’s true purpose has always been: the lock on the Darkness’ prison cell. We saw how the Mark influenced and changed the comparatively tiny Dean from Righteous Man into Demon Knight of Hell. We saw how it affected Cain himself; who took the Mark as an act of self-sacrifice to save his brother. But what did that Mark do to Lucifer?

As “The Lightbringer,” I imagine God would’ve chosen Lucifer to hold the key to keeping the Darkness at bay. That is, if Lucifer didn’t volunteer for the job himself. He was the most trusted, the most beautiful, the brightest of all the archangels. Back at the beginning of time, he probably believed it was a burden he was most suited to bear. But he bore it for a  _really really long damn time_. Even the brightest of lights eventually would become vulnerable to the darkness. We’re talking about this happening over the course of BILLIONS of years, here.

The trick is to remember that the Mark  _itself_  is not “evil” or “a curse.” It’s a lock. That’s it. It’s just that the thing on the other side of the door, whispering through the keyhole, would eventually begin to turn  _anyone_  to its side. Such is the nature of the darkness.

This is completely my theory here, but by the time Lucifer passed the Mark on to Cain, I like to believe that he was pretty much where we saw Dean at the end of S10. Desperate to get rid of it, and losing control of himself to it. So what better way to relieve himself than to pass the burden onto one of God’s favored creations: Humanity. Who knows if Lucifer had asked his Father to relieve his burden before that. Maybe he was told it was impossible, or that there was no one else who could bear it. And I believe THAT is the reason God created the Cage in the first place; not so much to contain Lucifer, but to contain the Darkness, as well as to contain  _what Lucifer had become because of the Darkness._

So with all of that in mind, was Lucifer really the driving force behind the Apocalypse, or was it actually The Darkness using him for its own purposes? After all, if Michael had slain Lucifer, the only barrier holding back the Darkness would’ve been Cain, at that point in time. The Apocalypse could’ve been an unsuccessful first attempt for the Darkness to pick the lock on her cage.

If that’s what was actually going on under the surface of S5, perhaps the “You will always end up here” from 5.04 wasn’t really Lucifer speaking through Sam to Dean, but The Darkness that had twisted Lucifer to its purposes. And that’s how we’re getting The End 2.0. Because not only was The Darkness whispering through the keyhole into Lucifer’s ear, she was  _listening._  I think she was pulling his strings as much as she could. It was her plan from the start.

I don’t believe that Death’s “death” is binding in the way we believe it will be. The same way the “destruction” of the other three horsemen didn’t end famine, disease, or war. The forces they embody keep rolling along without them. They just don’t have a physical presence at the moment with which to manipulate those forces to their will (think of Pestilence tinkering with his diseases, War staging battles, Famine cultivating hunger– all of which  _fed their power and strengthened their hold over the concepts their physical forms represented_.)

Essentially, I think we’re going to get something very apocalyptic, probably with a lot of strong callbacks to s4 and s5, because those are the sorts of situations that Lucifer was trying to bring about. Not the Lightbringer himself, but the Darkness working through him all along.

Finally, I think it’s marvelous that we have the theme of Darkness vs Light from the very inception of the “character” of the Darkness. These two forces had been split apart and kept apart since the beginning of time, and the main lesson we took from S10 was that you can’t really get rid of the darkness inside yourself without hurting the “good” parts of yourself in the process. You have to find a way to live with BOTH, good and “evil.” That’s just the way it works. Balance.

I’m really excited to see how this all plays out!

[spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [death and fried pickle chips](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/death-and-fried-pickle-chips) [because hell if we actually know what the horsemen are](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-hell-if-we-actually-know-what-the-horsemen-are) [and now the darkness](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-the-darkness) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [spn 5.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.04) [spn 5.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.20) [spn 10.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.23) [spn meta-ish](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish) [i've probably forgotten some tags here but whatever](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ve-probably-forgotten-some-tags-here-but-whatever) [it was just too much to tag properly pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it-was-just-too-much-to-tag-properly-pffft)

 

#  [Billie the Reaper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131239897345/billie-the-reaper)

[Oct 15, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131239897345/billie-the-reaper)

77 notes

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/131228795307):

> [prairiedusting](http://prairiedusting.tumblr.com/post/131223604906):
>
>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131222661765):
>>
>>> [larinah](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/131222251962):
>>>
>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131221238390):
>>>>
>>>>> From the way she was introduced, I first wondered if Billie was either the “New Death,” in a new vessel of sorts, and then immediately wondered if she was just a big boss reaper who’d stepped up to fill Death’s shoes somehow. Death had been referred to as “big daddy reaper” long ago on the show, so it’s not inconceivable that the void his “death” left behind (because yes I’m still balking about the notion that Death can be completely killed) would be filled by one of his other reapers. Power vacuum might’ve sucked the next best candidate (or closest available candidate) in to take over.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Whoever she is, and whatever power she has, I loved her. But to me, she also brought about the most terrifying part of a really creepy episode. Her warning to Sam outright scared the crap outta me.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The Winchesters never asked for their lives. They were manipulated into position long before their parents even met. Heck, Heaven ENGINEERED their parents meeting, just so they could be born  _to serve Heaven’s own purposes_. How many generations of people had to be moved around the chessboard by angels and cupids to get everyone in place for the Apocalypse? And then these two boys are born into tragedy and raised as hunters to fulfill a supposed destiny. The one thing they were ever promised (and again promised in every season finale intro sequence) was peace when they were done.
>>>>> 
>>>>> How many of their resurrections have we actually seen? When they finally showed up in the Garden and spoke with Joshua in 5.16, it was implied that they’ve been dead and in Heaven multiple times before, but those memories were erased. That time, he wanted them to remember
>>>>> 
>>>>> Again,  _they never asked for this_.
>>>>> 
>>>>> That brings me to Billie’s assertion that the next time they died, the reapers are through with them. Nothing awaits them. They’re going to be split into atoms and thrown into the void. She basically told Sam there’s no peace at the end of their road now– no Heaven (as isolating and boring as Heaven has been shown to be, there is a bit of peace, some sense of happiness), no Hell, even– only nothingness.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Without Death to stand as their protector, ensuring whatever Grand Plan the Winchesters were engineered to fill comes to fruition, the reapers are done with them. It looks like Dean finally managed to tear up the ending, and there are some actual stakes on the line for the Winchesters now (and I’m including Castiel in this, since the angels have disavowed him and essentially declared him a Winchester).
>>>>> 
>>>>> That’s freaking TERRIFYING.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Then again, after everything they’ve both been through, and it kills me to say this, maybe at this point they’d actually prefer permanent and total annihilation to riding this endless merry-go-round they were born into.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Great now I’m crying again.
>>>> 
>>>> So, as an atheist, I just want to add another point of view here.  (I’m not disagreeing with you, I just think “the empty” isn’t necessarily as scary as it might at first seem.)  I’ve actually thought that the happiest ending on the show would be to get rid of any sort of afterlife.  Hell has obvious drawbacks, but I don’t see any form of Heaven as being all that great, either.  Certainly not for all eternity.  And certainly not for the Winchesters who know what it is and presumably wouldn’t be fooled by the illusion.
>>>> 
>>>> It depends on what “the empty” is.  If they’re still conscious in some way floating around in the gigantic non-womb, that would indeed be pretty horrible.  But, if they simply cease to exist, why is that a bad thing?  It’s almost like finally getting to go to the Grand Canyon in a way.  It’s the ultimate peace.
>>>> 
>>>> To quote Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” 
>>> 
>>> Well, yeah. I mean that’s what I was sort of getting at. I  _personally_ don’t believe there’s a heaven or a hell or whatever waiting for us after death, but  _according to the show’s mythology_ , a soul being simply snuffed out has always been portrayed as a horror. That’s where I was coming from with my reaction there, and why I suggested they might actually prefer annihilation to whatever fate Heaven or Hell or wherever else might give them.
>>> 
>>> But they are the Winchesters, and nothing is ever as easy as it seems for them. Even with Billie’s promise, I don’t think they’re getting off the hook that easily. There’s too many entities still scrabbling over a piece of their hides. Including Dean’s “bond” with the Darkness (or Amara, or whoever that was in the darknado). She might have something to say about Dean being dissolved in the void. There’s still a lot of road in front of them, and the word of a single Reaper isn’t enough to make me fear for their souls just yet.
>>> 
>>> *and again, that’s coming from someone who holds zero belief in an afterlife, too, but for the sake of enjoying the show, I can buy into the mythology, just like I can buy into the fact that there are vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and everything else for the sake of analyzing the show from its own viewpoint on these things*
>> 
>> What if we’re seeing the show looping around to some sort of humanism? I was so struck by Sam saving the sludge zombies with holy fire and then saying, “Let’s save the others.” That’s basically my philosophy as an atheist, that divinity (compassion, respect, peace, and love) can only be found in ourselves because there is no outside source supplying it as from on high.
> 
> Same here, I don’t believe in an afterlife but in fictional universes where there is an afterlife, characters being annihilated is terrible.
> 
> But what Billie said isn’t going to become true - not as she’s expecting anyway. The Darkness isn’t going to just let Dean disappear just like that, she has stated that she’ll help him. And Sam finding a cure for the illness instead of dying soon like Billie was expecting, I think that’s foreshadowing for nothing going the way Billie is expecting. The Winchester don’t just let anyone toy with them without putting a fight and tearing the script eventually.
> 
> Maybe the Empty itself isn’t what reapers think it is like.
> 
> And about what [@prairie-dusting](http://tmblr.co/m4CehrLQJ7__7cxD_-QWZ4w) said, yes, real Good is in humanity, not in God, not in angels. It’s in each human trying and making mistakes and trying again, it’s in humans building families (which don’t end with blood nor start with it, of course), it’s in humans loving. As Cas said, humans feel deep pain, but they’re the only ones that can experience deep joy. Humans are the highest beings, because they’re capable of love. Angels (with extremely rare exceptions that only happen when an angel has intense contacts with humans) are either unable of loving or refuse to, or a mix of the two most likely. God? Meh. I see God as John Winchester, loving his children but not being able to love them in the way they need to be loved, and eventually making more damage than not.

I can’t argue with that.

And also, any foreshadowing we’re getting this season is about as reliable as everyone’s first impressions of pretty much everything. That is to say, incredibly inaccurate and only about 50% accurate, at best. So yes.

Also, I think the show itself has always sided with the more Humanist outlook. It was Dean’s morality that swayed Castiel to his side in the first place. A HUMAN’s point of view that humanity was worth saving placed above the Grand Plan of the Universe and the Divine Will.

[spn 11.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.02) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [team free will](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/team-free-will) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light)

 

[Nov 4, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/132557115790/ive-come-to-the-point-with-the-supernatural-s11)

19 notes

I’ve come to the point with the Supernatural s11 arc where I think my brain’s officially turned itself inside out. I’ve read speculation about Billie’s warning that the reapers aren’t going to let them come back from the dead again and they’ll be cast into the Empty for all eternity. Speculation on one or both of the boys potentially ending up either in the Empty, trapped and locked away with the Darkness, locked in Hell, or any number of other possible scenarios that leave them somewhere they’ll have to find a sneaky way out of. But I am cautiously wondering if we’re not being set up for something entirely different.

After Season 10′s Mark of Cain arc, especially after Cain literally spelled out what a lot of us were thinking by explicitly stating that Dean was living his life in reverse and would enact the same three crimes that Cain had committed, what did we get? The exact opposite. Dean didn’t kill Crowley, Cas, or Sam. He saved them.

I’m starting to believe (pffft, okay, I’ve believed it all along, but I’m becoming more confident about it with every new episode) that something similar is happening with The Darkness. After all, what was the driving force behind the Mark of Cain? The Darkness. This is how “she” operates (using “she” to describe The Darkness for simplicity’s sake, not making any sort of gender statement about it). And I believe that she is now integrating herself back into the universe since being locked out of it since the beginning of time.

God I hate having to resort to such trite phrases as “since the beginning of time,” but it is technically accurate here, so *sigh.* Don’t you just love a monster that’s so vague and incomprehensible that you don’t have a choice but to refer to it in ridiculous cliches and what seem like hyperbolic declarations? Pffft.

Anyhoodle, back to the point. I do think there are going to be dire consequences for the boys, but more in the way that the Darkness ended up being released was the unintended consequence of Dean not living up to Cain’s predictions. Who knows. If Dean HAD completed Cain’s hit list, he’d likely have ascended to the throne of Hell, and the world would’ve just gone on as it always had. Because he resisted giving in to the mark’s demands, it’s possible to view the release of the Darkness a direct consequence of that refusal, since Sam, Cas, and Crowley all worked behind his back to assemble the spell that removed the mark and freed the Darkness. They couldn’t have done that if Dean had kept to Cain’s schedule. They all would’ve been dead.

SO! Back to the point. Again. I don’t trust ANY sort of prophetic promise or ominous warning from ANY character on Supernatural (well, other than from Dean because he always keeps his promises, and from Cas who’s sort of learned his lesson about broken promises, and even Sam has painfully learned his lesson, but I have yet to see if he’s gonna stick by it yet).

I am taking a wait-and-see approach to all these dire proclamations, and assuming that God really does help those who help themselves. That’s the only thing that’s actually panned out on the show exactly as expected. I am happily watching now with all this in mind. Expect the unexpected.

[spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [pretty sure all of this *waves hand at this entire post* is due to the 'chaos' factor of the darkness bleeding over into the 'order'](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pretty-sure-all-of-this-%2Awaves-hand-at-this-entire-post%2A-is-due-to-the-%27chaos%27-factor-of-the-darkness-bleeding-over-into-the-%27order%27) [fate just doesn't stick to winchesters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/fate-just-doesn%27t-stick-to-winchesters) [and i'm lumping castiel in with the winchester now fyi](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27m-lumping-castiel-in-with-the-winchester-now-fyi)

 

#  [“I’ve been praying, and I know that she can hear me. I can feel it.”](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/132612697795/ive-been-praying-and-i-know-that-she-can-hear)

[Nov 5, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/132612697795/ive-been-praying-and-i-know-that-she-can-hear)

1 note

-Sydney, and just one more mistaken assumption about Amara in 11.05

I just went back and rewatched Sydney’s assumptions about her interactions with Amara. Pretty much every impression she took away from her meeting with Amara appears  _wrong_. Here, have a short (and incomplete) list:

  * she first assumes Amara is a little girl, and her immediate response is to show her care. Sydney is an essentially good person who genuinely cares for people, especially children.
  * When Amara does her little magic, in a move reminiscent of an angel healing someone with their grace, Sydney calls Amara an “angel,” a human term of endearment that Amara takes literally as an insult
  * she assumes that joyful bliss she experienced before Amara sucked out her soul was the result of being in Amara’s presence, and equates it to being in the presence of a goddess, and also believes that if she prays hard enough, Amara will return and bless her the same way again. Sydney has basically elevated Amara to the status of the Golden Calf, and even though Amara has likely moved on without a second thought for Sydney, Sydney’s experience has become the focal point of her own existence. She’s become a zealot.
  * “I don’t know what Amara did to me, but now it’s just skin.” A nice metaphor for the fact that Sydney is now just walking skin, empty of the essence of what made her “Sydney.”
  * “She lightened something in me.” The Darkness. Lightened something. Interesting choice of words there.
  * “When you can do whatever you want, you don’t have to get caught.” *pictures five minutes into the future when Sydney’s lying on the floor bleeding out after having been “caught” in the back with an axe*
  * “I saved Jordy, and I’m gonna take better care of him than they ever did.” Yeah, binding and gagging the kid and locking him in the hall closet is excellent care.
  * Returning to the notion that Sydney’s built up a Cult of Amara, she decided the next logical way to please her new goddess was to give Sam and Dean to her as an “offering.”
  * Her last line: “The Darkness is coming. It’s so peaceful. It’s coming for all of us.” If the Darkness is really coming for all of us, it’s going to be anything but peaceful. It’s going to be anarchy.



I just find it incredible how quickly Sydney was willing to devote herself to her new self-created religion, essentially worshiping Amara in the same way pagan cults were portrayed in the bible. Again, bringing up the pre-biblical lore, the creation stories, and the original division between God and the Darkness. Season 11 is quickly becoming my favorite season, and we’re only five episodes in.

[spn 11.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.05) [spn meta-ish](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [the more i look at her the more i'm just fascinated with sydney as a character in general](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-more-i-look-at-her-the-more-i%27m-just-fascinated-with-sydney-as-a-character-in-general) [i wonder how long it will take for an actual cult of Amara devotees to spring up now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-wonder-how-long-it-will-take-for-an-actual-cult-of-Amara-devotees-to-spring-up-now) [after that little 'sharing her mojo' thing before she ate sydney's soul i'm wondering how many other people amara has given that gift to](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/after-that-little-%27sharing-her-mojo%27-thing-before-she-ate-sydney%27s-soul-i%27m-wondering-how-many-other-people-amara-has-given-that-gift-to) [and how many other potential zealots are out there recruiting people to the darkness and chasing that feeling of bliss and peace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-how-many-other-potential-zealots-are-out-there-recruiting-people-to-the-darkness-and-chasing-that-feeling-of-bliss-and-peace) [seriously though there is SO MUCH going on this season and I am thrilled](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-there-is-SO-MUCH-going-on-this-season-and-I-am-thrilled)

 

# 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Sep 5, 2015

78 notes

[larinah](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/128414291202):

> [f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/128413243496):
>
>> [larinah](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/128404556627):
>>
>>> [justanotheridijiton](http://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/post/128391838279):
>>>
>>>> [larinah](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/119502808677):
>>>>
>>>>> [Genesis Chapter one, verses one and two](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fpassage%2F%3Fsearch%3DGenesis%2B1&t=N2FiNTdiOWZiODMxNWI0M2U5NTRiNzBjYzk0Yjk2OWU3NGExOTRkYyxEVXN0cmY2Mw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F128419239270%2F1-in-the-beginning-god-created-the-heavens-and-the&m=1).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Well, I would guess that counts as going back to the source, all right.
>>>> 
>>>> Andrew Dabb refers to these verses in the iTunes Sneak Peek (well, in the 30 seconds they let you watch for free).
>>> 
>>> There’s also a Bible verse that sounds a lot like the title for the first episode of the season, “Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire”.
>>> 
>>> [1 Peter 2:9](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fpassage%2F%3Fsearch%3D1%2BPeter%2B2%253A9%26version%3DNIV&t=ZTYwNTQyOTY3Yzg5ZjlhMzU4YmIwYTg3MTdhNTJlNTE1Y2FkNzI4YSxEVXN0cmY2Mw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F128419239270%2F1-in-the-beginning-god-created-the-heavens-and-the&m=1):
>>> 
>>> “9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.“
>>> 
>>> Into the light is good, into the fire is presumably bad.
>> 
>> But Death said that Genesis got it wrong and the Darkness was there before god.
> 
> Bearing in mind that ‘Supernatural’ always plays fast and loose with Bible stories so it doesn’t really matter either way, these verses don’t really go against the idea that THE DARKNESS was there first.  They basically say that God created the bits that aren’t THE DARKNESS and then brought humanity/heaven/Earth in its present form out of/away from that.  So form and order and life out of chaos and lifelessness perhaps?  Not necessarily good out of evil.

Death never said Genesis got it wrong, he just implied that a huge chunk of backstory got cut from the text: ([from the transcript on SuperWiki](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D10.23_Brother%2527s_Keeper_%28transcript%29&t=MjE5NTUxN2M0NWIwMzlkYjRhZThmZWRjNWRhZmZjYWMwMWEyODBhZixEVXN0cmY2Mw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F128419239270%2F1-in-the-beginning-god-created-the-heavens-and-the&m=1))

> DEATH: Creatio ex nihilo – God created the earth out of nothing – or so your Sunday-school teacher would have you believe.
> 
> DEAN: What, so Genesis is a lie, eh? Shocker.
> 
> DEATH (standing up): Before there was light, before there was God and the archangels, there wasn’t nothing.
> 
> There was the Darkness, a horribly destructive, amoral force that was beaten back by God and his archangels in a terrible war.
> 
> God locked the Darkness away where it could do no harm, and he created a Mark that would serve as both lock and key, which he entrusted to his most valued Lieutenant, Lucifer.

I think that clears that up. Before what we think of as “creation,” that moment when God brought forth light, OTHER STUFF HAPPENED. The Darkness had to be packed away in order for organized creation to get rolling. I imagine God as a wee lad sitting on the floor playing with blocks, and every time he built a little house or whatever, the Darkness came along and kicked it over and then ran away laughing. So God put her in time out so he could go about his little game of building stuff without interference. She’s been in the naughty chair since the dawn of time, and now she’s loose again. But there’s SO MANY little block houses now she’s spoiled for choice on where to start knocking them over. I am ready for s11 now.

Reblogged from [larinah](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/128414291202/1-in-the-beginning-god-created-the-heavens-and-the)

[spn s11 spoilers but probably not](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers-but-probably-not) [spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [and now the darkness](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-the-darkness) [wherein i compare god and the darkness to grumpy kindergartners](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-i-compare-god-and-the-darkness-to-grumpy-kindergartners)

 

 

[Dec 30, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/136263833100/hellsbells91-f-ckyeahfutbol-yarnyfan)

79 notes

[hellsbells91](http://hellsbells91.tumblr.com/post/136256761729):

> [f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/136254589656):
>
>> [yarnyfan](http://yarnyfan.tumblr.com/post/136253259913):
>>
>>> [littlehollyleaf](http://littlehollyleaf.tumblr.com/post/136250854592):
>>>
>>>> [hellsbells91](http://hellsbells91.tumblr.com/post/136217646734):
>>>>
>>>>> [littlehollyleaf](http://littlehollyleaf.tumblr.com/post/136214541687):
>>>>>
>>>>>> [ibelieveinthelittletreetopper](http://ibelieveinthelittletreetopper.tumblr.com/post/136208529658):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So. Episode 15 is about…professional wrestlers? Okay.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Wrestling like - The Undertaker and The Rock etc?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> That thing with narratives and fights that are pretty clearly staged/scripted, but IIRC there was famously a bit of a debate for a while over whether it was ‘real’ or not?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Because that would fit quite nicely into the ongoing theme of reality vs. fiction, (inc. people putting on facades, performing!dean, stories being wrong and all that)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (or is it a different kind of wrestling? idk where to find the write up of the episode, I’m still so clueless about spoilers, sorry!)
>>>>> 
>>>>> OH. You made me think of something else!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Masked characters perform a staged fight/’dance’ in a  _square_   _ring_  before an audience. Sound familiar?
>>>>> 
>>>>> This also then connects back to Plush - especially with Sam against the masked clown inside the  _square_ elevator. And then also the elevator signs in 11x02.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I could be trying to put together a pattern that doesn’t exist here, but is this more evidence for the theory that what happened between Sam and Lucifer didn’t (if only partially) actually happen?
>>>> 
>>>> Huh, I hadn’t noticed squares had started to reoccur, thanks!
>>>> 
>>>> My gut feeling would be that it’s just another variety of prison imagery, and so about how the boys are metaphorically trapped/imprisoned - the four fixed walls of a square representing/reflecting the rigid confines of the brothers’ bond, connections to dances/performances/masks reflecting the facades the boys are ‘trapped’ behind/within and with Sam in particular the squares could reflect how despite having physically escaped the Cage he is mentally/emotionally still trapped inside it because of memories/trauma that he hasn’t properly tried to deal with.
>>>> 
>>>> But there’s definitely a case for the idea that there’s some posturing (‘dancing’) going on in the square space Sam ended up in with Lucifer, yes, point! Even if it only reflects the unreality of the Christmas thing coming up next episode maybe… And Sam is in a position of having to ‘wrestle’ with his demons (both literal and metaphorical), while Lucifer is putting on a show/mask in his ‘wrestling ring’ (oooh, despite being square it is still called a ‘ring’ yeah? bringing us back to circles).
>>>> 
>>>> So yeah, idk about the stuff in Oh Brother Where Art Thou not happening, but it’s not impossible since it fits the general themes!
>>> 
>>> …there is a particular form of bout in pro wrestling called a “cage match”. I wonder if that will come up…
>> 
>> Well, Sam’s hell trauma has been referred to as his “cage match scars” at least twice in the past, so viewing it in the context of combat is established on the show. There’s also a type of wrestling ring called [“hell in a cell”](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHell_in_a_Cell&t=NWVhOGExMjBmZjE0ZWY2N2FlNTA1NmQ2NzZkYjFjOTQ4ODQzYWFhMyxPVnpJaDh1Qg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F136263833100%2Fhellsbells91-f-ckyeahfutbol-yarnyfan&m=1). 
> 
> [@yarnyfan](http://tmblr.co/myP8L7uSM-6EBNK9-SqHDOg) Yes I was just thinking that this brings new meaning to the term cage match! 
> 
> And I love that this has already been brought up in the show before to specifically refer to Sam’s time in the Cage with Lucifer. 
> 
> [@littlehollyleaf](http://tmblr.co/mj93d7p0vQfWxEHowMHZeUQ) 100 agree with you on it being an extension of the prison imagery and symbolic of the brothers’ bond and the masks/cages that they’re trapped in/barricade themselves behind. Wasn’t season 10′s tagline ‘wrestle your demons’? It seems to have more weight here xD + I’m not convinced either that the conversation with Lucifer was  _entirely_  fake but there’s definitely something hinky going on with the way it’s set up like a stage performance/a wrestling match… And the last time Sam was fighting in a ‘cage’ was with the masked clown who was being controlled by a spirit who was able to move through the vents/fissures in the Cage.
> 
> I always thought the elevator signs in the hospital were connected to the three figures traveling towards Heaven and Hell as well - especially since this follows the meeting with Billie. We’ve had Hell in 11x09 and last time we visited Heaven it was set out like a prison with Bobby in his own private ‘cell’ so maybe that will be addressed as well.
> 
> And yes the square ring reminded me of the ring of holy fire in 11x02 in which the Darkness was burnt away by the light (so to speak) a different type of cage match. And the idea of something being a square but also a ring sort of brings us back to the theme of duality (e.g. something being both alive and dead, a whole split in two, red/blue, male/female etc), but again I think i’m just getting ahead of myself here…

It gives me life that we’ve found so many things to think about just from a mention of wrestling… :D

I love all of this, but particularly the duality themes there at the end of [@hellsbells91](http://tmblr.co/m1lkdtLvthGBtXadZSzkS7Q)‘s addition, and the notion that at least some of what happened in 11.09 wasn’t entirely what it seemed. After all, it did immediately follow an episode called Just My Imagination, and the whole nature of Sam’s visions all season long have been presented as “not entirely what they seem.”

I’ve been referring to the Cage where Sam met Lucifer as a “holodeck,” and Lucifer himself (or whatever portion or representation of Lucifer that Rowena summoned to that cage) described himself as “so much smoke,” if he left the cage without a vessel. (which is also the first time I’ve heard an angel refer to their true form as “smoke,” which has also been bothering me a little… but that’s for another meta). So even the form that Sam is conversing with isn’t “real” in some sense. It’s a mask, or a hologram, a construct of hell, or the cage, or Rowena’s spell.

For anyone who’s never seen Star Trek, a holodeck is basically a square room where the computer can be programmed to create a virtual reality that the people inside can interact with almost like reality. It can create people, food, anything really. And it seems entirely real… but it’s not. But! It is real enough that people can be injured by the imaginary reality within. There are safeties in place in the computer programming on Star Trek (just like Rowena’s safeties of the square ring of holy fire around the cage), but they can be overridden or simply glitch and fail, leading to injuries or even death.

The potential for dangerous non-reality strikes me as very much like the clown in 11.08. Sam was trapped in a small square space (the bars of which were cage-like, but also exactly like a holodeck), and the clown wasn’t real, either. It was just a guy trapped behind a mask. As soon as the spell was broken, the guy wandered off none-the-wiser about what he’d done while wearing the mask. (Which also brings to mind what happens to the vessels of angels… in 4.20 Jimmy hadn’t really remembered most of his time as Cas’s vessel either).

The duality themes have been going strong since the MoC arc began. Light against Darkness, etc. And now squares and circles. Wrestling (and boxing) rings were traditionally a circle marked out on the floor, but eventually they started roping off the area to keep spectators back from the fight within the ring, which is how the ring evolved into a square. The circle is still there, sometimes painted on in the center of the square, or sometimes just left entirely to the participants’ imagination, but it is still symbolically there. It’s where the participants in the fight meet at the beginning of the match to shake hands (or otherwise acknowledge their opponent in whatever tradition they’re fighting in).

And while there are five episodes between 11.09 and 11.15 that we  _haven’t_  seen yet, there’s potential to bring all of these themes to the forefront before the boys even step into the ring.

[spn 11.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.15) [spn 11.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.09) [spn 11.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.08) [spn 11.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.02) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [the story became the story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-story-became-the-story) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A)[order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [sam vs reality](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-vs-reality) [wrestle your demons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wrestle-your-demons)

 

[Mar 27, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/141795185315/ok-so-it-has-come-to-my-attention-that-god-might)

13 notes

**Anonymous asked: Ok. So it has come to my attention that God might be gay/bi? In that episode where Amara talks to Cas she says something around the lines of Cas being his favorite and how her brother always had bad taste in men. What are your thoughts on this?**

Ooh, hello! This is a really interesting question, and one I recall several people pondering back when 11.10 first aired. I think there’s a lot of interesting points to consider.

It’s been made clear on multiple occasions that angels on Supernatural don’t really conform to the gender binary. They are Chrysler building-sized wavelengths of celestial intent who can borrow human vessels. Hannah and Raphael both have used male and female vessels without any difference in how they perceive or present themselves. Angels don’t appear to think in human terms about “male” and “female.”

A lot of this season’s (and the past few seasons’) main themes revolve around the concept of duality, though, and there’s a lot of different things to take into account.

God has always been presented on SPN with male pronouns. Angels have referred to him over and over again as “our father,” or even “dad.” Now that we’re exploring god’s missing half and the broken duality of the universe, it’s convenient and logical that the Darkness would be presented as female. It’s yin and yang. Masculine and feminine. It helps take these vast concepts of light and dark, creation and destruction, order and chaos, and present them as human-ish characters we can identify as fundamentally opposite based on humanity’s understanding of the gender binary.*

*AN: yes I know the “gender binary” is a load of hooey, and fails to account for everyone who falls between “entirely male” and “entirely female” on the spectrum of gender. For the purposes of telling this particular story, in relation to the two specific characters of God and Amara, they essentially personify the archetypes of “entirely male” and “entirely female” narratively. This is not a commentary on gender politics or representation.

So, going back to the first bit I said about angels not falling into a specific human gender while in their true forms, Castiel might present a slightly different sort of case, but that hasn’t really been clearly defined in canon. What we do know is that since 4.22, or more accurately when he was resurrected at the beginning of 5.01, he’s been “alone” in his vessel, which we’re left to assume was custom-rebuilt for him (and then rebuilt again at the end of 5.22, and sometime during s7). He then had his grace forcibly removed in 8.23, becoming entirely human inside his body, which happened to be male. Cas has been using that vessel for a really long time now, and even though he’s never actually said the words in canon, I’ve often assumed that he’s developed a certain attachment to that vessel and that he likely  _identifies_  as that vessel in a way no other angel does. He’s experienced things very few other angels really have: life as a human being,  _life as that body with all its attendant feelings and needs and experiences_.

All that being said, despite having been locked away since the beginning of time, Amara makes that statement about “her” “brother.” I put the gendered terms in quotes, because they’re really just stand-ins for all those other duality pairing words I used a few paragraphs ago. I keep referring to Dark Charlie vs Good Charlie, because its a convenient canon representation of how I’ve been thinking about God and Amara. I can’t help but think of God and Amara not as brother and sister, but as two halves of one whole that has been split apart since the dawn of creation. But it’s really difficult to write dialogue for vast, impersonal archetypes of universal concepts.

SO! We have God “personified” into a human-shaped vessel. We have The Darkness personified into Amara. Intellectually, I don’t read either character as distinctly “male” or “female.”

Now that we have that out of the way, Amara has been exposed to the memories and feelings of numerous souls (including demon souls and the grace of at least one angel) that she’s consumed. Even if she didn’t start the season with an understanding of the gender binary, she did start with an understanding of the nature of duality, and because it’s easy to use established human concepts to convey the inherent nature of what the Darkness (and therefore Amara) IS as one half of a duality, she’s accepted the female label and used male labels to describe god.

She’s also been exposed to popular culture enough to even understand the concept of someone having “bad taste in men,” and used the phrase to insult Castiel. She’d just consumed Ambriel’s grace, and we already had a few hints about how Ambriel thought of Castiel. She (and I’m using the female pronoun because Ambriel was in a female-presenting vessel when Amara ate her) didn’t think very highly of Cas. She didn’t seem to have any understanding of all of the things that Cas has been through. She wasn’t even one of the warrior angels. From the way she described herself and her knowledge of Cas and his adventures, I got the impression that Ambriel was more of a pencil-pusher than anything else; one of the “secretarial pool” that Metatron once described.

From Ambriel’s perspective, Cas might very well look like an expendable, unimportant angel. So WHY CAS? Why would god keep resurrecting him? Why would he keep giving him important missions? Well, in distinctly human terms, and in a way we can all relate to, Amara delivered a single line that managed to insult and demean both god and Castiel.

So taking into account all of the above, sure, why the hell not allow for an interpretation of god as bi. In the context of the show, and the characterization of god in a human-appearing male-presenting vessel, there’s no reason to assume he isn’t. But also based on all of the above, and keeping in mind that god has also been defined in canon as the “parent” and creator of angels (and everything else, too), I don’t really think Amara intended it as a literal statement as a personification and evaluation of god in human terms.

Gosh, this is such a difficult thing to even conceptualize, let alone discuss rationally without sounding like a kook. I’M DOING MY BEST MY. MY BRAIN HURTS.GIF.

I’ve spent the last hour trying to wrap my head around this. I have no idea if I managed to explain it in any sort of useful or relatable fashion. So let me sum up in tl:dr fashion:

  1. god is a non-gendered being that is the substance and force behind all of creation.
  2. Amara is the personification of “everything else” outside of the tangible universe
  3. in order to cast them as characters on a tv show, they’ve been personified into a male/female duality
  4. As these personified characters, they use human terms of duality, specifically terms describing the gender binary, because such is the nature of creation
  5. taken entirely out of the cosmic and unknowable nature of what these human-presenting characters are meant to represent and focusing only on their embodied presences within the narrative, sure. There’s nothing wrong with interpreting that as “god is bi.”
  6. but that’s not really relevant, because god isn’t actually a “person” and Amara isn’t actually a “person.”
  7. does that even make any sense? gosh i hope that makes sense.
  8. i think i gave myself a migraine and i need a lie down now



I have no idea if that even came close to answering your question. I have no idea about much of anything right now. I have transcended the mortal coil and am currently floating three feet off the floor. Thank you for helping me achieve a transcendental state this afternoon. :D

[tagging from the beyond where i have shucked off my earthly trappings](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/tagging-from-the-beyond-where-i-have-shucked-off-my-earthly-trappings) [no really i think i broke my brain about three times trying to get all this out](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/no-really-i-think-i-broke-my-brain-about-three-times-trying-to-get-all-this-out) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [gosh i even have a tag for that pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gosh-i-even-have-a-tag-for-that-pffft) [and my general apology tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-my-general-apology-tag) [wherein mittens thinks out loud to the general dismay of her followers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-mittens-thinks-out-loud-to-the-general-dismay-of-her-followers) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light)[and now the darkness](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-the-darkness) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [Anon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anon)

 

[Sep 17, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150562481485/real-quick-i-still-love-tim-and-doug-i-know)

13 notes

Real quick, I still love Tim and Doug (I know that’s not their canon names but thanks to [@powerfulweak](https://tmblr.co/m0VxwqT5Mkws_qB-6LRoKgQ)they’ll always be Tim and Doug to me).

These two basically summed up a good bit of S11 too. 

> Demon: You know, our two operations will always butt heads. That’s the set up. But this? We could be out of work.  
> Angel: Yeah. We get knocked out, it takes over.  
> Demon: Someone’s gotta do something.  
> Angel: Someone?  
> Demon: Yeah. If management won’t, it’s up to the little guy.  
> Angel: Yeah. I hear ya.  
> Demon: Power to the people, my friend.  
> Angel: Well, not actually people.  
> Demon: You know what I mean.

Yeah, Heaven and Hell have always butted heads. It’s the setup. But Heaven and Hell are modeled around Light and Dark, Chuck and Amara. Always butting heads.

The setup had been faulty from the word go, and in order to fix it, they had to work together. Is it strange that on rewatch I’m seeing this theme over and over again?

[spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-hellatus-rewatch) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [i'm having fun trying to remember all my early s11 tags >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-having-fun-trying-to-remember-all-my-early-s11-tags-%3E.%3E) [tim and doug are still my favorites <3](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/tim-and-doug-are-still-my-favorites-%3C3)

 

[Oct 9, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151587554060/im-rewatching-1121-right-now-after-1119-and)

15 notes

I’m rewatching 11.21 right now (after 11.19 and 11.20).

I’d forgotten just how many lies Chuck told. How many half-truths, filtered through his “Chuck” persona’s “super cute gift” that Metatron called him out on. Like creating souls made him feel “nauseous.” Metatron may have started the process of forcing Chuck to lay aside all his crap, but hanging out in the bunker where he could still shovel most of his issues off onto Dean, well…

It’s pretty clear he’s got a lot of layers of crap to dig through before we get to the kernel of truth at the center.

The blatant lie that he couldn’t find Amara because she was specifically warded against him, while we’re shown in the VERY NEXT SCENE that Amara is basically stopping at nothing to get Chuck’s attention.

She even tells Dean flat-out (in the next scene after that) that Chuck is ignoring her.

> I’ve missed you, Dean. It’s been a while since we’ve spoken. I’m aware my brother has surfaced. If you should cross paths, if he should reach out to you, he should know this – Lucifer, his favorite, isn’t doing so well. [Casifer appears, tortured and beaten] To say nothing of the vessel, your friend Castiel.  **By choosing to ignore me, my brother is allowing this to happen.**  These and… other things. I thought you should know. [She fades away]

She only wants his attention. She’s not warded against him. He just doesn’t want to face her.

And yeah, they aren’t people who had a falling out. They are polar opposite forces of the universe whose very nature is to be polar opposites. But by locking her up Chuck pushed something out of balance and now everything’s gone wobbly while Amara moves back in to fill that empty space. It’s a cosmic overcorrection. You could say it was just their nature, but it took a huge push from outside forces to shake some damn sense back into both of them.

Metatron, Dean, Lucifer, Cas, Crowley, Rowena, Donatello, and finally a little old lady named Bea who enjoyed feeding pigeons.

Also, as a side note, can I squeal again about how Sam goes all eager puppy over Chuck, while Dean rolls his eyes and disgustedly suggests that Chuck put some pants on…

It’s kinda like Dean’s struggling with babysitting a shorter, more divine, and less housetrained version of himself.

[spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light)


	31. Chapter 31

#  [Why are you fighting what you really are?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158114329470/why-are-you-fighting-what-you-really-are)

[Mar 7, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158114329470/why-are-you-fighting-what-you-really-are)

23 notes

ETA: Those were Crowley’s words to Dean, that play over the montage of Dean doing EVERYTHING in his power to find a cure for the Mark at the beginning of 10.12. I thought they made an excellent summary for this post. >.>

I’m rewatching 10.11, which as y’all might recall was the “key” (heh, key, because Inner Key of Oz) to unlocking all the mysteries of s11, because I have yelled endlessly about this fact…

But I’m really realizing now that this episode– while giving us everything we need to know about s11– is simultaneously responsible for all the reasons I freaking HATE s10… Let me explain. I’ll start with a transcript of everything I just yelled at Lizbob in the chattybubbles:

> CHARLIE JUST SAID “LET THE DARKNESS OUT”
> 
> I haven’t really paid much attention to s10 since s11 started, but in hindsight it’s just so…
> 
> The ONLY part of this that kept throwing us off was the ongoing assumption that the Mark was doing to Dean the same thing the Key to Oz had done to Charlie…
> 
> The wrong assumption that Dean’s “darkness” in s10 BELONGED TO DEAN. All the mirror symbolism, a reflection of HIMSELF… and the darkness in him wasn’t HIS at all…  
>   
> Yet Sam and Cas, and even Dean, kept treating the Mark like it functioned exactly the same as the Oz key… “unlocking” Dean’s PERSONAL darkness, when really it was the key to something more along the lines of Purgatory, and what happened to Cas when he swallowed the Leviathans…
> 
> But… bigger.  
> And it took Dean most of s11 to realize that.

It’s almost like they got to the midpoint of s10 and THEN decided to kick this up a cosmic notch. Like they’d been laying this foundation of the Mark truly being a “curse,” until the show was renewed for s11 and they had to hastily scramble to make this about so much more than Dean…

Yet once they figured that out, it all starts to make sense again in s11. But at this point, EVERYONE still thinks that Dean’s loss of control, the violence he has a harder and harder time keeping in check– EVERYONE STILL BELIEVES THAT’S ALL COMING FROM INSIDE DEAN HIMSELF.

I mean, it’s no WONDER he felt like dirt, no? No wonder he felt so damn worthless. Like Dark Charlie, Dean just believed all of that horror was truly a part of himself, when nothing could be further from the truth.

> Charlie: We are going to fix this. I’m not letting what happened to me happen to you.  
> Dean: But it’s already happened.  
> Sam: Cain found a way to live with it.  
> Dean: Right yeah, after centuries of murder.  
> Charlie: Yeah well, there’s one thing you have that he didn’t. You’re a Winchester… I forgive you Dean.  
> Dean: Yeah well, I don’t.  
> Charlie: I know, kinda your move. How’s that working out for you?  
> Dean: I’m so sorry kiddo.  
> Charlie: Then prove it.

And how horrifying that must’ve been for EVERYONE. For Dean, for Sam, for Cas, for Charlie… ALL OF THEM BELIEVED THAT THIS DARKNESS BELONGED TO DEAN. And they ALL treated him accordingly, like HE was the one who was untrustworthy, like they truly believed that everything Dean struggled with under the Mark was JUST A PART OF DEAN.

And it’s only truly horrifying looking back at the whole mess from post s11.

Hindsight’s a bitch.

BUT. Everything about this makes it clear that “releasing the Darkness” in 10.23 WAS a shocking twist. All season had been deliberately setting up a reunification within Dean himself. I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s a huge part of the reason that the last third or so of s10 just… didn’t work for me.

The narrative repeatedly told us that this darkness was Dean’s own internal darkness, that it was his and his alone. Yet Sam and Cas resorted to such shady and genuinely terrifying lengths to “fix” him. It was only after 10.21 where I really felt like Dean had truly given over to his dark side. Sam and Cas’s secretive concern for Dean just… seemed so  _wrong_  until Dean truly went off the rails. And it wasn’t even until 10.23 that any of that secret plotting even began to make sense in hindsight.

Eh… sorry. I shouldn’t complain, because all of this ^^ ended up being the perfect setup for s11, but it’s as if they trashed everything that happened to Dean in s10 in order to make that happen.

Granted, I DO prefer it when Dean isn’t under the influence of supernatural forces, because he IS “Humanity,” but gah… 

He believed that darkness was HIM for so long, and he knew that Sam and Cas believed that Darkness was HIM too… like, what a kick in the teeth for Dean…

I can just imagine his thoughts must’ve been something along the lines of:  _all that time I’m turned into a freaking puppet for the primordial Darkness that devours all things and you bastards thought it was just Dean being Dean? Fuck that. How could you think that little of me? Then again, I thought that little of myself… Still not entirely sure how much of that WAS me just using the Mark as an excuse, how much of me really was that killer, that monster that hunted down Charlie’s killers and yelled in the face of that cop that I KILL GODS… was that really me? or was that Amara all along? Was that just her practicing to kill THE God? like was I just a warm-up act for her?_

It took Dean a LONG time to feel okay about ANY of that…

I think this is always gonna be my one Major Sticking Point with the entire freaking series. I should probably just shut up now.

[spn 10.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.11) [spn 10.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.23) [spn 10.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.21) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [mark of cain](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mark-of-cain) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [i should really probably learn to let this go but no it still irks me... :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-should-really-probably-learn-to-let-this-go-but-no-it-still-irks-me...-%3AP) [mittens makes peace with s10 via dabb's spitewriting of s12: an ongoing saga](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens-makes-peace-with-s10-via-dabb%27s-spitewriting-of-s12%3A-an-ongoing-saga)

 

[Mar 23, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158745253220/ack-i-forgot-to-mention-in-my-big-post-on-116)

13 notes

Ack, I forgot to mention in my big post on 1.16… they end up defeating the shadow demons with light. Sam yells “shut your eyes!” and sets off some flares, and this brilliant white light devours the darkness.

*mental montage of every time Cas has blown out demons with light, leading up to 11.23 and Chuck and Amara dissolving into light and darkness in balance*

 

[order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [spn 1.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.16)

 

 

[Mar 14, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171876579255/i-thought-everything-the-priest-had-to-say-was)

33 notes

**Anonymous asked: I thought everything the priest had to say was very meaty for meta, too! :) Mostly my head is trying to parse the season's direction. That is, the previous episode was called Good Intentions, and in this episode we have discussions about good things. If intentions pave the road to hell, is the goodness of a thing, then, in the DOING? Were there only bad choices in 13x14, or could they have found another solution like Sam did here? How's the show threading this moral needle, Mittens?**

I think they’re not even attempting to thread the moral needle. And I think trying to parse their choices based on if they’re objectively “good” or “bad” is just not that simple.

and… did Sam really find “another solution” in 13.15, or did he just do the typical Sam thing– neglect his own needs because someone else did actually have the moral high ground, and since he objected to becoming “thieves” from the get-go (despite his thought and lead bringing them to that point where theoretically they just had to do that one thing and they’d have the “blood of a saint” Sam believed they needed for the spell), and had been looking for an escape hatch from the increasingly morally objectively “bad” dead-end path their actions and choices had sort of progressively trapped them into? Sam just reached his personal moment of ENOUGH! And being Sam, before he made that decision he googled Father Camilleri to confirm he was who he said he was (hey, they’ve been taken in by a fake id one too many times, you know?). If Sam was gonna throw away his remote chance of getting his hands on the Most Holy Man’s blood in order to do the right thing from the original party who’d been wronged by the theft of the skull, he was gonna do his due diligence in making sure he was potentially sacrificing his chance to rescue Mary and Jack for a Very Good Reason.

And being Sam, when he stumbled across the title “apostolic protonotary supernumerary” or whatever it was, he was curious enough to look up what the title actually meant, which led to the Father’s embarrassed retelling of the anecdote about meeting the Pope… and that the Pope had called him a Most Holy Man.

Like… most ridiculous coincidence of all time, and not actually a cause/effect thing based on Sam’s choice, except in a karmic/cosmic/divine will sort of way and that’s just… not how morality works, you know?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the earliest meta we wrote about Jack and his incredibly naive understanding of morality early in the season. I just remember lots of aww’ing over how Jack wasn’t going to be “evil” because he wants so badly to be “good.” And that entire line of thinking was just profoundly unsettling to me.

Because NOBODY and NOTHING is “purely, objectively good.” And Jack’s gradual acceptance of himself has largely been based on his ability to understand this. That doing one “bad” thing doesn’t make him inherently evil, you know? Accidents happen, we feel terrible about that, but it’s a fact of life. We either learn from them, or we let our mistakes destroy us (or in the case of Supernatural, the whole damn multiverse).

Dean and Sam trying to explain God and Lucifer, and Jack insisting on being able to file them under “good” or “bad,” right along with “family,” which CAN be good, but even Dean has said numerous times that just being “blood” doesn’t automatically make someone “family.”

Life is one long varying shade of grey, and sometimes it requires looking at the much bigger picture (or focusing in on tiny details) in order to reduce things down to objective good or bad. And even then, the choices we make still may have unintended consequences.

And unlike in fiction, we don’t ever get to see an alternate universe where we made different choices to give us some perspective on these matters, you know?

I don’t think the show is trying to define these things as objectively good or bad, but to show us just how grey everything is. In a world of grey where the characters are just doing their best to get along, it’s as good a reason as any to base your choices on protecting what you love. Sometimes the good thing is the stupid thing, sometimes you think you’re doing good and terrible things happen anyway, and sometimes you stumble over a good thing while you’re distracted doing a bad thing…

And sometimes all the good and bad is irrelevant in the bigger picture, because the larger mission is still questionably moral at best, too…

[spn 13.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.15) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [and to haul out another s11 tag on the subject](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-to-haul-out-another-s11-tag-on-the-subject) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [we're operating in a post-duality universe here now... it's all shades of grey](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we%27re-operating-in-a-post-duality-universe-here-now...-it%27s-all-shades-of-grey) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	32. Chapter 32

[Nov 15, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/133299369400/f-ckyeahfutbol-bluestar86-f-ckyeahfutbol)

166 notes

[f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/133297271756):

> [bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/133296461293):
>
>> [f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/133291030241):
>>
>>>  
>>> 
>>> The fandom has finally caught on to Death’s message from the sixth season on it all being about the souls, and souls have taken centre stage in the episodes of the eleventh season. 
>>> 
>>> We’ve had a lot of talk about who might be missing a soul and for what reason, and we’ve talked about whether Castiel has a soul, especially following  ** _Our Little World_**. The consensus seems to be that Castiel is in possession of a human soul, and most people seem to believe that he developed one  _ex nihilo_. The alternatives would seem to be that a soul was spontaneously born in him, that Metatron inserted one into him as he removed Castiel’s grace, or that a pre-existing soul found its way into Castiel. What ever the means of his receiving a soul, it would indeed seem that Castiel’s ‘four wheels’ (=car =vessel) has ‘four legs’ (=angel grace and human soul) on them.
>>> 
>>> But in a related topic, I’m going to ask the question I hadn’t seen anyone ask so far:  **Does Metatron have a soul, or does he not?**  This is an important question regarding the aforementioned topic, as he is also an angel that has had his grace removed, and it is through the parallel of Metatron that we might approach Castiel’s situation.
>>> 
>>> The conditions for not having a soul, as outlined in  ** _Thin Lizzie_** , are not sleeping, not dreaming, and not eating. While Sam ate in his chilly droid period, we don’t know that he needed to, as hunger comes from the soul according to Famine in  _ **My Bloody Valentine**_. While Castiel was diagnosing Sam in  ** _Family Matters_** , we also discovered that Sam did not feel, although he had physical sensations. So let us use this in diagnosing Metatron.
>>> 
>>> We saw him eat pancakes in  ** _Book of the Damned_**  – and in this he was paralleled with soulless Len that had lost his appetite for pancakes. But we don’t see him eat or refer to any food in  ** _Our Little World_** , and while he mentioned the unending indignities of being human, he makes no reference to digestion this time. Although he does say “Daddy’s got to eat” as  _an excuse_  for stealing a dying man’s money, we may take this as weak negative evidence to his not eating. And we have no evidence at all that he feels  _hunger_.
>>> 
>>> He does not mention sleeping or dreaming in  ** _Our Little World_**. We know that he has a bed in his apartment, which might indicate sleeping. But we also know from Castiel that he has bed bugs in his bed and a stone tablet under his mattress, which might indicate that he does not sleep. Again, there’s indication that he might not sleep – and likely would not  _dream_  even if he did.
>>> 
>>> So, does Metatron feel? This is where the difference between Metatron as angel and Metatron as a human come into play.
>>> 
>>> As an angel, Metatron did not feel like a human feels. I’ve written in the past about how he coveted, but did not understand desire. He still seems to covet as a human. But he is cold. He watches a man die, and may have helped him die bar intervention. But as a human, we saw him heal several people – to his own ends, certainly, but the angel Metatron would have considered what Marv did petty.
>>> 
>>> Metatron did not show any fear of Castiel, and this may be the strongest evidence for him not having a soul. He most likely should have feared Castiel and his retribution. But instead he keeps egging the angel on to near loss of life. Note also that his new chosen profession took him to seedy alleys in the dead of night without weapons to seek out danger to film. And this was an angel with a heightened sense of self-preservation instinct that had caused him to hide himself for millennia.
>>> 
>>> Not only do we not see Metatron display any emotions – physical sensations, yes, he is distraught by the beating he receives – he cannot even recognize the emotions on Castiel. He also explicitly says “I was faking it”, in reference to the “Fake it till you make it” that had been said about dealing with soullessness both in  ** _Thin Lizzie_**  and  ** _Clap Your Hands If You Believe…_**
>>> 
>>> It would seem that Metatron is without a soul.
>>> 
>>> It is also noteworthy that Metatron seems to have been human for about a month, because this establishes a parallel between  ** _Heaven Can’t Wait_** ,  ** _Our Little World_**  and  ** _Black_**. The first two are obvious, both Robert Berens’ episodes, meant to be contrasted. Contrasted in the episode itself in many ways.
>>> 
>>> We see the difference between Castiel and Metatron: one spent a month finding the real dignity in humanity by cleaning the vomit from the Gas-n-Sip restroom, while the other suffered from the indignity of humanity by becoming a purveyor of the metaphorical human excrement. But Dean is also a parallel to them – and it is lampshaded by the episode reminding us that Crowley spent five weeks paying his astronomical bar tabs.
>>> 
>>> Unlike Metatron, Dean had his soul, “wee bit more twisted, a little more mangled beyond human recognition”, but all his. And according to Castiel, Dean had chosen to remain a demon because he could not face the pain of being human. All three of them spent around a month in hiding. Dean with his own demonized soul.
>>> 
>>> Metatron with no soul.
>>> 
>>> And Castiel with a human soul.
>>> 
>>> If we may use Metatron to establish that angels do not just spontaneously grow souls when their grace is forcibly removed from them, the question of why Castiel’s wheels have four legs on them becomes very interesting indeed.
>> 
>> This is such a great point. Having thought about this a lot I would love the show to explore this more. Naomi’s statement about Cas having a ‘crack in his chassis’ comes to mind.
> 
> Oh dude, no need to ever apologize for adding to my posts – as far as I’m concerned, that’s what tumblr is  _for_. 
> 
> I think about [the crack in his chassis ](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/104869944261/whats-the-word-cas)a lot.

I have spent way too much time wondering when Cas developed a soul. The first time he was blown up by Raphael in 4.22 (and which has since been confirmed in canon as the moment Jimmy died, and that Cas was returned to his vessel alone), could he have already been given or developed a soul? Or just had the correct conditions in which a soul could develop? Because he blamed “his vessel” for his carnal (haha) reaction to Famine’s influence in My Bloody Valentine. But that would be his soulless body’s reaction, because Jimmy wasn’t there to be affected. Would a soulless person potentially be driven to crave food in that fashion, when every soulless person has described their actions as either “going through the motions” or “trying something because I always wanted to,” as in the case of why they went on killing rampages. Could his otherwise empty vessel have been influenced by Famine at all?

But then in 5.21, when Cas wakes up in a hospital after carving the angel banishing sigil into his own chest and effectively banishing  _himself_ , he tells Dean that the doctors believed he was brain dead, yet his body continued to live, and he was able to reclaim the vessel. If he had developed a soul by that point, would it have been banished along with his grace, or was that what stayed behind in the vessel, keeping it alive until he “woke up” again, almost entirely mortal?

Either way, I have always theorized that in order for God (or whoever resurrected him after 4.22) to reunite an angel’s grace to an empty vessel, there had to be something for the grace to latch on to, or we could have angels using inanimate objects as vessels, or dead bodies, or whatever, and even during the Angel Fall Event, they were only ever shown trying to inhabit living human vessels who could consent to the possession.

Without Jimmy’s original soul present to provide the consent, I imagine Cas had to be given full ownership of the body somehow.

Also, with an angel like Metatron who had theoretically been inhabiting the same vessel for centuries, or even millennia, what became of the vessel’s original inhabitant when Metatron’s grace was torn out? Was that person’s soul still in there with Metatron at the time? Did the original soul simply wither away to nearly nothing, burning out over time like the metaphorical comet Jimmy described in 4.20? Was Metatron truly the sole owner of his vessel at the time? Because if not, that might be responsible for some of the differences we’ve seen between Cas and Metatron’s reactions to becoming fully human, soul or not.

Cas has always chosen to return to humanity (in his reliable Jimmy suit), even when his grace was ripped out against his will; while Metatron disdained humanity, even while living among humans and devouring human culture.

Cas has cultivated in himself the qualities humans associate with “soul,” while Metatron has simply studied them from afar like a man looking at pinned specimens under a microscope.

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [wherein mittens thinks out loud to the general dismay of her followers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-mittens-thinks-out-loud-to-the-general-dismay-of-her-followers)


	33. Chapter 33

#  [Which version is actually Hallucifer? (spoiler alert, it’s the one from 5.04)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/140402355800/which-version-is-actually-hallucifer-spoiler)

[Mar 3, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/140402355800/which-version-is-actually-hallucifer-spoiler)

57 notes

*Warning that I didn’t use my politeness filter while writing/editing this, and it’s damn salty. This is just me ranting because that’s how I deal with endverse, as well as complaints that Lucifer’s characterization in s11 is somehow wrong. Because I think it’s fucking spot on. And here’s why.

I’ve just rewatched 5.03 followed immediately by 5.04, and as usual, my first instinct with 5.04 is to find all the reasons why endverse was never a real thing, but something entirely created by Zachariah. Gosh I’ve made SO MANY posts about this subject. Unpopular opinion alert: I FUCKING HATE END VERSE AND EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. It’s intended to be fucking awful, it’s SUPPOSED to strike us a  _wrong wrong wrong_  in every way. And to be perfectly honest, it’s about as close as Supernatural has ever come to being legitimately triggering for me personally. It’s the one fic trope I actively avoid after being genuinely triggered by a fic set there. So for me, I can only watch it again with this mindset, that it’s 100% a creation of Zachariah’s sick mind. It helps me really feel the hate for Zachariah and his whole mission, which didn’t need much help to begin with, but hey. Whatever works to keep me functioning after wading through the endverse shitshow.

Anyway, here’s my new observations (bearing in mind I’ve now seen both of these episodes at least two dozen times apiece, so I’m shocked there was anything new to notice at this point, but hey, brains are weird).

In 5.03, Raphael taunts Dean and Cas with this exchange:

> RAPHAEL: Surely you remember Zachariah giving you stomach cancer?
> 
> DEAN: Yeah, that was, that was hilarious.
> 
> RAPHAEL: Well, he doesn’t have anything close to my imagination.

Well, yeah. The stomach cancer thing happened in 5.01, and was Zachariah’s first attempted manipulation in getting Dean to say yes to Michael. Remember Zachariah’s been on Team Bring On The Apocalypse since the beginning of s4. He was on the same team as Uriel, trying to arrange things to ensure the devil was set free. Being a bureaucratic dickbag (and this is established in so many ways, but the point’s driven home in the opening scenes of 5.18 where he’s commiserating with another luckless middle-management type who’s just lost his job). But that comment from Raphael, about Zachariah not having any imagination, led directly to scheming up the entire endverse scenario.

After all, in 5.03 we’re shown Lucifer actively manipulating Sam’s dreams, coming to him inside his head and creating a very real-feeling scenario with Jess. Granted, it wasn’t very imaginative, but we know that Lucifer didn’t need more than that to get Nick’s consent. Show up in the guise of a dead wife/lover, and appeal to the emotions. Boom. That’s it. But it did set up the reminder that angels can influence and manipulate dreams (which we learned back in 4.02, and was reinforced several more times in s4, especially 4.20).

So I see endverse as Zachariah’s first response to Raphael’s assertion that he lacked creativity. Zachariah is the epitome of the bootlicking lackey who takes what little power he does have to make his underlings lives as miserable as possible. As a strategy to manipulate Winchesters, it fails spectacularly. He had nothing but disdain for them as  _people_ , he doesn’t understand humanity at all, or the things that motivate Dean. We also already know Zachariah is able to manipulate reality to an alarming degree, after his introduction in 4.17, where the whole Terrible Life ‘verse was shown to be his brainchild. Granted, after endverse fails to motivate Dean the way Zachariah anticipated it would, he abandons that tactic to strike more directly, while still using these sorts of manipulation tactics (using a theoretical relationship with Mary in 5.16, and then finally starting to understand what family means to Winchesters and using their half-brother Adam as bait in 5.18, but by then they absolutely KNEW they were being baited, so in the end Zachariah’s plan to get Dean to say yes still failed, and he ended up stabbed in the face for his troubles).

The reason I’m bringing up all this again, is because the archangels (Raphael, Michael, and Lucifer specifically, since Gabriel was for my money the MOST creative of all of them, even though the lessons he tried to teach backfired just as hard, and ended up schooling him instead of the Winchesters).

But back during the apocalypse, ALL the angels on Team Bring On The Apocalypse were unbelievably confident that if they just followed the script, they could predict the outcome. Lucifer now, in s11, has played the current game once before, sure. He was directly involved in the original battle against the Darkness. The major difference now is that everything that’s happened in the interim proved his original assertion wrong. Not even Lucifer’s infamous line, “ Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here. I win. So, I win,” was actually spoken by Lucifer. That was all Zachariah. Even future Dean’s lines, now that I’ve heard them a few dozen times, don’t  _really_  sound like Dean. They sound like Zachariah’s interpretation of Dean.

Which all factors in to this current version of Lucifer, a version that is apparently floundering, grasping at straws, and fundamentally at a loss as to how to tackle the Darkness. We haven’t explored Lucifer’s potential tie to the Darkness as the original bearer of the Mark, the original lock that held back the Darkness before he passed it on to Cain, but that may play a factor into understanding Lucifer’s current, shall we call it  _impotence,_  in dealing with Amara.

So for yet one more reason, it’s impossible to look at this frustrated, snarky incarnation of Lucifer with the cold, confident white-suited red-flower-caressing version from 5.04. Because  _THAT was NOT Lucifer_. That was the “scariest possible vision to present to Dean” version of Lucifer that Zachariah invented to frighten Dean into saying yes to Michael.

This current version of Lucifer is far more real, at least to me. It’s Lucifer who spent millennia in the cage AGAIN, hundreds of years of that time with Sam Winchester as his main source of entertainment. I’ve even heard folks trying to argue that all of Lucifer’s pop culture references are more of  _Dean’s_  thing, than Sam’s thing, so it still doesn’t really ring true. But Sam was convinced by Hallucifer’s behavior during s7. So while people may think it was entirely a product of Sam’s mind, HE BELIEVED IT WAS AN ACCURATE ENOUGH PERFORMANCE OF THE LUCIFER HE KNEW IN THE CAGE TO DOUBT THAT IT WAS A HALLUCINATION. Let that sink in, then tell me Misha’s performance of Lucifer isn’t spot-fucking-on.

Now Lucifer not only has access to his Encyclopedia Of Sam he compiled during Sam’s centuries in the cage, he’s also got access to Castiel’s pop culture download info. He’s going to use every last tool available to him, no matter how disdainful he feels toward humanity and the demons in his employ. And that all comes through with the references and his behavior in general.

Contrary to the cold contempt of 5.04 Lucifer, I actually prefer this obviously flawed Lucifer (not that there’s a flaw in how he’s portrayed, but that Lucifer is inherently flawed by human standards, those same standards that make Castiel with his “crack in his chassis” the least flawed of all the angels BY VIRTUE of the crack. It’s his humanity we see as his true saving grace, and Lucifer’s  _lack of humanity_  we see as his greatest flaw, despite using these trappings of humanity to achieve his own personal ends).

The fact that Lucifer has chosen to remain in Castiel’s vessel specifically even though he’s theoretically free to find another more willing human vessel, is telling. Castiel’s vessel isn’t truly human. When he was resurrected in 5.01, it was without the human soul that originally belonged to his vessel. And he’s been brought back twice more since then, and still remains the only owner of the body formerly known as Jimmy Novak. Cas is the closest thing Lucifer can get to a non-human vessel. Castiel is strong, just because he has his own purpose-built human body. Jimmy’s meatsuit isn’t a meatsuit to Castiel. It truly is Castiel’s own body.

For an angel who despises humanity, what better vessel to wear? One that doesn’t require him to drink gallons of demon blood to maintain. One that isn’t breaking down under the burn of archangelic grace. Hael said it back in 9.01, that Castiel’s vessel was strong, and she wanted to use him not only because her own vessel was failing, but because Cas understood humanity and would be able to guide her and support her with his knowledge. Lucifer wants to keep him for the same reasons now.

So there you go, my final defense of the characterization of Lucifer in s11, all because I got really fucking pissed off at 5.04 again. I really have to stop watching that damned episode.

 

[spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [spn s5](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s5) [spn s4](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s4) [spn 5.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.04) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 9.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.01) [lucifer (the one on spn-- not my kid)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn---not-my-kid%29) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F) [i have like actually zero fondness for endverse at all so it makes me happy to invalidate it at every turn](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-have-like-actually-zero-fondness-for-endverse-at-all-so-it-makes-me-happy-to-invalidate-it-at-every-turn) [and no i don't even like the idea of endverse as an au god i hate that place](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-no-i-don%27t-even-like-the-idea-of-endverse-as-an-au-god-i-hate-that-place) [why do i do this to myself i have to stop thinking about 5.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/why-do-i-do-this-to-myself-i-have-to-stop-thinking-about-5.04) [and there's the entirety of my endverse tags](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-there%27s-the-entirety-of-my-endverse-tags)[during the apocalypse god couldn't intervene and send all the archangels to their rooms and call the whole thing off](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/during-the-apocalypse-god-couldn%27t-intervene-and-send-all-the-archangels-to-their-rooms-and-call-the-whole-thing-off)[pffft i thought i had a better archangels tag than that but apparently not](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pffft-i-thought-i-had-a-better-archangels-tag-than-that-but-apparently-not) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)[but really i'm sick of people whining they want jared-in-a-white-suit lucifer back because THAT WAS NEVER EVEN LUCIFER TO BEGIN WITH](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-really-i%27m-sick-of-people-whining-they-want-jared-in-a-white-suit-lucifer-back-because-THAT-WAS-NEVER-EVEN-LUCIFER-TO-BEGIN-WITH) [THAT was hallucifer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THAT-was-hallucifer) [this is how mittens copes with shit that would otherwise reduce her to pudding](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-mittens-copes-with-shit-that-would-otherwise-reduce-her-to-pudding)


	34. Chapter 34

#  [Cupids, Soulmates, and Heaven](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149759983655/cupids-soulmates-and-heaven)

[Aug 31, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149759983655/cupids-soulmates-and-heaven)

120 notes

[awed-frog](http://awed-frog.tumblr.com/post/149734932152):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149730588850):
>
>> I’ve seen a lot of posts going around lately talking about soulmates, the “shared heaven” of soulmates, the role of Cupids in putting couples together, and whether or not being “destined” to be together has anything to do with the above. [This post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149711585510/oceansex-you-know-i-dont-understand-why-a-lot) about whether Dean and Cas are “destined” to be together, or somehow “soul mates,” or whether they’ve truly tripped up destiny and forged ahead against the grand plan tipped me over the edge to write this post, because SPN doesn’t say an awful lot in canon about any of these subjects, and I wanted to sort it all out for myself without making any assumptions that the show doesn’t make explicitly clear in canon.
>> 
>> Because why do those have to be mutually exclusive concepts? (and yeah, I’ve already [addressed that notion a looong time ago here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/129854802925/elizabethrobertajones-jellyfishline-am-i-the)). (okay that post is almost a year old but in fandom time i think that counts as a looong time right?) (plus I’ve got a whole bunch of tags devoted to analysis of the handprint, the profound bond, etc. not linked here because as I said, A WHOLE BUNCH OF TAGS).
>> 
>> What I do know is that we have mountains more  _fanon_  ideas about soulmates and the like than we do  _canon_  ones. I admit I enjoy a fluffy soulmate fic as much as the next person, but in reality I find the idea of soulmates potentially really uncomfortable. Are you only one half of a complete soul? Weird soul-twins? Are you unable to make a choice about who you spend your life (and theoretically the rest of eternity) with because it’s completely out of your control who your soulmate is? And those are all interesting questions, but I wanted to try and set all of that aside and focus strictly on what Supernatural canon has to say on these three separate yet interrelated subjects: Cupids, Soulmates, and the Shared Heavens of said soulmates.
>> 
>> Apologies in advance for the rambling and seemingly random order this meta is presented in. The more I’ve been thinking about all of this for the last few days, the more the entire thing has come together piecemeal like this, but this is how my brain chose to take all of this information and process through it. Welcome to the inside of my head. It might only make sense to me. :D
>> 
>> The cherub third class, aka Cupid, was introduced in 5.14 My Bloody Valentine. We never really learn the full extent of what being paired up by a cupid means for the couple affected, on a metaphysical level. We’re told that Cupids set up couples that, for one reason or another, Heaven has deemed should be together. They use their arrows to “mark” the two people, and it’s this mark that’s apparently the source of the couple’s “bond,” or love for one another. Or whatever it is that attracts them to each other, the cupid’s mark seems to be the key to that.
>> 
>> The cupid never ONCE says that the pairings result in soulmates. That’s 100% fanon invention. I, for one, like to think that souls are made of sterner stuff than that, and they can’t be warped and grafted on to other souls like that for the convenience of Heaven. I find that notion… icky and problematic.
>> 
>> That cupid also tells Dean and Sam that their own parents had been “set up” by cupids, and that they “couldn’t stand each other at first.” Well, that doesn’t sound like the makings of a true soul-bond long-term love, does it?
>> 
>> And I am 100% convinced that this means that cupids DO NOT create “soulmates” with their marks.
>> 
>> The only true soulmates that we know of in the entire canon of Supernatural are Jimmy and Amelia Novak. They were not brought together by cupids, and we know 100% that they shared a heaven after Amelia’s death. And that’s pretty much all the evidence we have that they are soulmates at all.
>> 
>> Two episodes after the introduction of the cupids, 5.16 Dark Side of the Moon, introduces Heaven. It’s pretty clear that Sam and Dean DO NOT share a heaven. They have distinct and individual experiences of what their own personal heavens are like, and each finds the other’s to fall somewhere on the scale of “depressing” to “downright awful.” One of Sam’s “best memories” is actually something that Dean referred to as one of the worst nights of his life. In fact, NONE of their happiest memories made the other’s list at all.
>> 
>> Only with Cas’s guidance is Dean able to find Sam’s heaven, and only the disruption that Sam and Dean cause trying to evade the angels allows Ash to find them and pull them into HIS OWN heaven. Because of course Ash was brilliant enough to hack into Angel Radio. With nothing but time on his hands, he seems to have become quite good at it.
>> 
>> BUT! And here’s where I veer off the train of some of the other theories I’ve read lately, so apologies for this…
>> 
>> Ash heard the ruckus, heard the angels put out an APB on Sam and Dean, probably with the Heaven equivalent of their last known location, and Ash was able to bring them back to his own personal heaven. There is no interconnectedness between any of their heavens, other than the manipulation techniques that Ash has taught himself, using sigils to wander between NUMEROUS different heavens (including Pamela’s, and up to this point we didn’t even know they’d been aware of one another, let alone that they would be able to find each other in Heaven).
>> 
>> Ash explains what he’s learned of heaven, and in very simple terms explains that he brought them to “Ash Land,” His own personal heaven. And that aside from “certain special cases, like soulmates,” that everyone has their own personal, individual heaven. And most people can’t leave them.
>> 
>> But I think that Ash wouldn’t be satisfied in a heaven he couldn’t leave and wander off to meet interesting people once in a while. His own curiosity likely is what led him to even have the ABILITY to realize that he could leave Ashland in the first place. When we found Bobby’s heaven in 10.17, for example, he was perfectly content to just sit there and relax, despite probably having a better understanding of Heaven’s structure than most people. He never had the DESIRE to leave his heaven, even just to explore.
>> 
>> Ash tracked demons via computer in life, but in heaven that would translate to tracking angels. That’s perfectly in line with one of his “happy memories” that his heaven would’ve generated spontaneously. He just took that and ran with it.
>> 
>> And that’s the entirety of what he had to say on soulmates. That they were extremely rare, and that they shared heavens. And then couldn’t name a SINGLE PAIR of them. He sort of ~implied~ that he thought Sam and Dean might fall into this category simply because he’d found them together, but he wasn’t privy to just what it took for Dean to find Sam’s heaven in the first place; i.e. the intervention of an angel teaching Dean how to “hack” heaven via the Axis Mundi. Dean had a crash course in what Ash has spent YEARS trying to understand and manipulate for himself. If they actually HAD shared a heaven, they would’ve arrived in the same memory and not had to go looking for one another, just like Amelia and Jimmy Novak.
>> 
>> Ash also admitted that he’d never been able to find John and Mary’s heavens, despite them being on his radar and having spent a considerable amount of time looking for them– especially for John. He was also unaware of Jo and Ellen having died. Guess that didn’t make Angel Radio.
>> 
>> We also know that Ash’s All Access Heaven Pass sometimes didn’t work exactly as planned, because as soon as he drew the sigil that would supposedly take Sam and Dean directly to the Garden, they instead stepped right into Zachariah’s clutches. Eh… heaven’s confusing and malleable? I guess that’s the takeaway here?
>> 
>> But earlier in 5.16, we get Dean’s first admission that John and Mary weren’t actually the perfect couple the cupid in 5.14 had described. One of Dean’s most depressing “happy memories” is of him comforting his mom and her giving him pie. It’s the ONLY time in canon that Dean has ever said “I love you” to ANYONE, and it was his 4-year-old self saying it to Mary because she’d been fighting with John and he apparently hadn’t been home in a few days. This entire exchange kills me:
>>
>>> MARY: (on phone) Hello? … No, John. … We’re not having this conversation again. … Think about what? … You’ve two boys at home. …  
> DEAN: I remember this. Mom and Dad were fighting and then he moved out for a couple days.  
> SAM: Dad always said they had the perfect marriage.  
> DEAN: It wasn’t perfect until after she died.  
> MARY: (on phone) Fine. Then don’t. … There’s nothing more to talk about.  
> Mary hangs up the phone and turns away from the table. She sniffs as if she’s fighting back tears.
>> 
>> Sound like the “perfect couple” to ANYONE? Are they actually really happy with one another? Do they seem like “soulmates?” I have always looked at this scene as the definitive proof that Cupid pairings, even those couples arranged by heaven and MARKED BY ANGELS (this will become relevant soon enough… hang in there) may have felt a compulsion to be together, but I don’t think it was some sort of happy ideal that wouldn’t eventually fall apart without the underlying  _real_ love and bond between two people who shared an honest, open, loving relationship with one another. And John and Mary, based on that, were doomed from the start.
>> 
>> Mary apparently never told John about her past as a hunter. Never told him about demons, monsters, or how she bargained for his life. Remember how Dean felt (cold and hollow) after John traded his own life for Dean’s in 2.01? Can you imagine John feeling that way toward Mary for their entire marriage and never understanding why?
>> 
>> Only after Mary died, and John SAW how she died, and then began unraveling the mysteries of the supernatural, he likely learned of the deal that Mary had kept hidden from him for years, the demon who’d targeted his family for over a decade… and then he went on a revenge mission. Partly to destroy the demon who’d torn apart his family, and partly out of anger that Mary had even kept all this from him in the first place. But admitting that? No, it was easier to put Mary up on an altar and hunt the demon with the righteous fury of a man wronged. It’s not exactly romantic soulmate fodder. It’s… pretty damn fucked up, actually.
>> 
>> And I’m really hoping s12 deals with some of this from Mary’s pov.
>> 
>> 6.03 The Third Man introduced another aspect of angelic marks on humans, in the form of soul-selling. Castiel was able to read Balthazar’s mark on the little boy’s soul, but I don’t think that made Balthazar and Aaron Birch “soulmates.” But in what way did Balthazar’s mark differ from the mark made by cupids? Balthazar’s mark was framed as more like a Crossroads Demon’s claim on a soul, with eventual ownership going to Balthazar upon Aaron’s death. Cas convince Balthazar to release Aaron’s soul, and he did it without question.
>> 
>> And this is where we edge closer to the “handprint” meta I referenced way up at the beginning of this argument here. Aka: the mark Cas left on Dean’s soul.
>> 
>> Does the mark itself make them “soulmates?” Based on everything described above? No. Does it bind them together in some way? Create a connection between them that they’re then able to build off of as they’ve chosen to work together over and over again after nearly 9 years now? Yes, I’d say that it does. But the bond they share could’ve just as easily gone the way of ANY angelic bond. It could’ve remained the transactional tie that Aaron Birch and Balthazar had, strictly a financial arrangement. It could’ve grown into the kind of love that cupids can only HOPE that both parties they join together enjoy for the rest of their lives. Or it could go the way of John and Mary, where lies and secrets and the greater plans of Heaven and Hell were destined to tear them apart.
>> 
>> No, Dean and Cas have forged their bond on years of simply choosing one another, over and over again, against all the plans of heaven and hell.
>> 
>> It also seems like John and Mary (or the Winchester bloodline and the Campbell bloodline) would’ve eventually intersected had Abaddon not intervened back in 1958, robbing John of his early exposure to the supernatural. The balance was already thrown off at that point, and it seemed the cherub’s intervention may have only become necessary because John had been thrown of his life’s natural course when Henry disappeared from it. We don’t even learn about the Winchester family’s involvement in the MoL until 8.12, after all.
>> 
>> And then we have our most recent Cherub appearance, back in 8.23. If Heaven gets couples together for the sole purpose of joining bloodlines, what interest do they have in uniting a homosexual couple who can’t produce biological offspring? What do we have to ask ourselves about WHY heaven would specifically be interested enough to send a cherub to make these two dudes fall in love with each other? Is it simply that the two of them ARE actually soulmates? Maybe they’d been resisting their own natural attraction to one another simply because they felt it was taboo for two men to be in love like that? We don’t really know why the cherub was in that bar that night, but we do know that the two men she touched were already friends, were already hanging out in an otherwise empty bar together. They seemed to have a lot in common, yet hadn’t ever expressed their mutual attraction to one another. Maybe internalized homophobia is a thorn in heaven’s side, so they send out cupids to help people get over themselves?
>> 
>> And even in that episode, Gail the cupid doesn’t even specify that she’s actually on a mission from Heaven:
>>
>>> I’ve been afraid to go home for some time now. Orders used to come once a day, and now it’s chaos. It all seems to be breaking down. And you think you can fix that?
>> 
>> She hasn’t been receiving regular orders. It appears that the cupids haven’t been  _given_ regular orders in a while now. Metatron is the one to tell Cas that the barman is slated to be “dinged” by cupid’s arrow (before describing human love as “slapping bellies” so I don’t think he’s actually an authority on human love, or that we’re supposed to believe that he is).
>> 
>> The cupids have their own Angel Radio Frequency (as stated by Metatron and not questioned by Cas), and they’ve apparently being going along doing the best they can trying to make people  _happy_  since they no longer have orders to fill for Heaven. Which was why the cupid was willing to just hand over her bow and arrow without a fight. She wanted to help fix heaven. Little did she know she’d be helping to break it.
>> 
>> What it certainly  _looked_  like she was doing was helping people who maybe were afraid to enter into romantic relationships but otherwise might’ve been happy together get over whatever was keeping them apart. So, seeing actual, real love and then just giving a little angelic nudge to the participants. Were the two guys in the bar soulmates? Maybe. If they were, were they only soulmates because the cupid shot them with her arrow? Most definitely not. Did they seem to be happy once they were touched by an angel? They looked pretty dang happy.
>> 
>> Did John and Mary ever seem that happy? Like, at any point in canon? Not that I can recall.
>> 
>> And that is everything we know, in canon, about heaven, soulmates, and cupids. Which is why I have such a difficult time extrapolating ANYTHING further about who might share heavens, who are actually “soulmates,” and what the mark Cas clearly left on Dean’s soul (visible even on his skin at the time) might really mean.
>> 
>> Yes, that mark has grown over years to mean so much more than just a claim on a soul by an angel, but that’s only because Dean and Cas have chosen to make it more by choosing each other over and over again.
> 
> This is really, really interesting and completely on point. Personally, I think they introduced that whole ‘soulmates share a heaven’ business a bit too light-heartedly, but maybe I’m just sensitive about the subject. Because, like, surely we’d  _all_ like to believe we’ll see the people we love after we die? And, well  _Supernatural_ , its angels, and its God being what they are, it makes sense Heaven’s a messed up place, but this idea that some people share a heaven -  _who_ , exactly? How is that decided? And we’re talking about romantic soulmates, I assume, since this is what the term means and this fanfiction idea of ‘platonic soulmates’ makes my skin crawl. So, no, what that means is that parents and kids will never see each other again, and even people who loved each other very much, like Bobby and his wife, are parted forever. Because, what, you love someone and devote years of your life to them, but, nope, you’re not soulmates so it’s not good enough?
> 
> The whole thing makes no sense to me and - I know you don’t like these theories, [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg), but here we go - I think they introduced it with Ash as a narrative ‘get out of jail free’ card. And I don’t mean that as in, it was bad writing. Just like, they didn’t know if it would ever come in useful, and they were already in Heaven, so, whatever - let’s mention it and then we’ll see.
> 
> Same thing goes for Jimmy and Amelia being soulmates - everything bad that happened to them was because Cas had taken over Jimmy’s body - and, let’s admit it, he’d been very underhanded, almost brutal, in how he’d done that - from making Jimmy doubt his own sanity to abandoning his daughter without so much as a backward glance. And, of course, Cas’ interest in Claire’s life  _does_ redeem the character (as does everything else, and mostly his fantastic arc of learning to love), but we were always going to be uncomfortable about what happened to Claire’s family. So, well - her mother joining her husband in Heaven - Dean telling Claire Cas saved the world by possessing Jimmy - that sort of closed that storyline, and brough about complete redemption for Cas’ character.
> 
> (Because surely it’s not so bad being dead - having been viciously murdered even though you didn’t do anything wrong - if you can be with the love of your life forever? That’s the message there.) 
> 
> And, again, same for that gay couple hit by the Cherub. As you say, it makes no  _sense_ Heaven would want them to be together, and I’m having a very hard time finding an internal reason for the whole thing. No, this was clearly done for narrative purposes - both to get that surprise twist and to parallel them with Dean and Cas.
> 
> As a conclusion, the idea of soulmates can seem romantic and all, but I invite anyone who thinks it actually makes sense to have a look at what God - aka, Randall Munroe, [has to say about it](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwhat-if.xkcd.com%2F9%2F&t=NWUxYjZiZjQ1MjYyNmIyYTU5N2E1NjAyNzU1ZjBkMDI3MzNiY2ZjZixyRXZDakdQWQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F149759983655%2Fcupids-soulmates-and-heaven&m=1). And then it should become really scary. 

Reblobbed for the addition, because yeah, the entire concept of cupids and soulmates seemed to stem from the need for a plot device. The fact there’s been  _so little_ said about either in 11 seasons just adds to my reticence to give any weight to the concept of soulmates in the show.

Also, it’s not that I don’t  _like_  theorizing about this, but just for the purposes of this post I wanted to lay out the facts without muddying the water with headcanons, as much as possible. NOW we can theorize to our hearts’ desire/ :D

Finally, I don’t have an SPN binder where I store all this info. I have a [Superwiki](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2F&t=ZmRmNWExMTYyNWVkODBkMmY5MzQxOTQzYzIwNjNlOWJhOWE0MTJkNSxyRXZDakdQWQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F149759983655%2Fcupids-soulmates-and-heaven&m=1), I watch the entire series obsessively in a loop (I’ve seen most of it maybe 18, 19 times through now?), and I’ve chosen to prioritize remembering “obscure facts about a tv show” over such unimportant nonsense as “what day of the week it is today.” :D

 

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [because claiming cupid matches = soulmates just did not sit right with me and now i know why](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-claiming-cupid-matches-%3D-soulmates-just-did-not-sit-right-with-me-and-now-i-know-why) [blah blah points back at all the tags i put on the original version of this post because i'm too lazy and tired to find them myself](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/blah-blah-points-back-at-all-the-tags-i-put-on-the-original-version-of-this-post-because-i%27m-too-lazy-and-tired-to-find-them-myself) [long post gets longer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/long-post-gets-longer)

[spn 5.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.14) [spn 5.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.16) [spn 6.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.03) [spn 8.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.12) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [spn 10.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.17) [spn 10.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.20) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [and i've been wondering what actual facts we have in canon about soulmates... and we have surprisingly few](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27ve-been-wondering-what-actual-facts-we-have-in-canon-about-soulmates...-and-we-have-surprisingly-few) [i've been reading too much meta that claims so-and-so as soulmates and i needed to work through all of this for myself](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ve-been-reading-too-much-meta-that-claims-so-and-so-as-soulmates-and-i-needed-to-work-through-all-of-this-for-myself) [because claiming cupid matches = soulmates just did not sit right with me and now i know why](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-claiming-cupid-matches-%3D-soulmates-just-did-not-sit-right-with-me-and-now-i-know-why) [and as far as i can tell the only canon pair of soulmates is the novaks](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-as-far-as-i-can-tell-the-only-canon-pair-of-soulmates-is-the-novaks) [and everyone else is just making it up as they go](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-everyone-else-is-just-making-it-up-as-they-go) [okay that's done pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/okay-that%27s-done-pffft) [possible unpopular opinion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/possible-unpopular-opinion) [see this is why i avoid talking about my 'unpopular opinions' i like having friends :D](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/see-this-is-why-i-avoid-talking-about-my-%27unpopular-opinions%27-i-like-having-friends-%3AD) [but i seem to be violating that rule more and more lately... so... sorry](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-seem-to-be-violating-that-rule-more-and-more-lately...-so...-sorry) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)[figured i'd throw that tag in there...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/figured-i%27d-throw-that-tag-in-there...)

 

Aug 30, 2016

1,226 notes

[oceansex](http://oceansex.tumblr.com/post/149660022877):

> you know, i don’t understand why a lot of deancas fics insist cas was destined to be with dean, or that he fell in love with him from the moment he touched his soul
> 
> intrigued or even attracted i can get, but dean and cas have literally flipped the bird to the entire concept of predestination. the whole point of their canon relationship is that they made their own rules as they went. 
> 
> i mean maybe that’s just me, but i always thought the beauty of it was that they could just as well have ended up  _not_  feeling much of anything for each other, that their relationship deepened as a result of the choices they made.
> 
> i don’t want them to be inevitable, to be soulmates - i want them to choose each other.

Source: [jtmcas](http://jtmcas.tumblr.com/post/149660022877/you-know-i-dont-understand-why-a-lot-of-deancas)

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [i've been having A LOT of thoughts about soulmates and cupids and such in the last few days because of this post and a few others](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ve-been-having-A-LOT-of-thoughts-about-soulmates-and-cupids-and-such-in-the-last-few-days-because-of-this-post-and-a-few-others) [and i've been wondering what actual facts we have in canon about soulmates... and we have surprisingly few](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27ve-been-wondering-what-actual-facts-we-have-in-canon-about-soulmates...-and-we-have-surprisingly-few) [which has led me to MORE thoughts on the matter to the point where i've got a long meta brewing on the subject...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-has-led-me-to-MORE-thoughts-on-the-matter-to-the-point-where-i%27ve-got-a-long-meta-brewing-on-the-subject...)

 

 

 


	35. Chapter 35

[because i'm too lazy and tired to find them myself](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/blah-blah-points-back-at-all-the-tags-i-put-on-the-original-version-of-this-post-because-i%27m-too-lazy-and-tired-to-find-them-myself) [long post gets longer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/long-post-gets-longer)

[Aug 31, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149774122540/rachelhaimowitz-oceansex-you-know-i-dont)

1,226 notes

[rachelhaimowitz](http://rachelhaimowitz.tumblr.com/post/149766036641):

> [oceansex](http://oceansex.tumblr.com/post/149660022877):
>
>> you know, i don’t understand why a lot of deancas fics insist cas was destined to be with dean, or that he fell in love with him from the moment he touched his soul
>> 
>> intrigued or even attracted i can get, but dean and cas have literally flipped the bird to the entire concept of predestination. the whole point of their canon relationship is that they made their own rules as they went. 
>> 
>> i mean maybe that’s just me, but i always thought the beauty of it was that they could just as well have ended up  _not_  feeling much of anything for each other, that their relationship deepened as a result of the choices they made.
>> 
>> i don’t want them to be inevitable, to be soulmates - i want them to choose each other.
> 
> All of this. Also adding that, in a very sort of deliberate way, I think the angels have … retconned this story to have it make sense to them (”When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!”), because the angels are All About Destiny and can’t wrap their heads around it any other way.

  

 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [but dean already had a 'more profound bond' with cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-dean-already-had-a-%27more-profound-bond%27-with-cas) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[reblobbed again because wow yeah i hadn't thought about what cas's rebellion to side with humanity must've looked like to the angels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/reblobbed-again-because-wow-yeah-i-hadn%27t-thought-about-what-cas%27s-rebellion-to-side-with-humanity-must%27ve-looked-like-to-the-angels) [they have no concept of free will and exist to serve and obey](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they-have-no-concept-of-free-will-and-exist-to-serve-and-obey)[and here's Famous Spanner in the Works Castiel at it again and even sending him for reprogramming doesn't seem to work anymore](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-here%27s-Famous-Spanner-in-the-Works-Castiel-at-it-again-and-even-sending-him-for-reprogramming-doesn%27t-seem-to-work-anymore) [so of course it must be dean who's broken him beyond 'repair'](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-of-course-it-must-be-dean-who%27s-broken-him-beyond-%27repair%27) [and it must've been destiny because they can't seem to kill him or reprogram him into obedience and it defies rationality](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it-must%27ve-been-destiny-because-they-can%27t-seem-to-kill-him-or-reprogram-him-into-obedience-and-it-defies-rationality)

[Sep 2, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149850862385/postmodernmulticoloredcloak)

166 notes

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/149806445077):

> [deanwinchesterisadorable](http://deanwinchesterisadorable.tumblr.com/post/149802239198):
>
>> [bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/133296461293):
>>
>>> [f-ckyeahfutbol](http://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/133291030241):
>> 
>> Castiel has been different from other angels from the first time we met him in s4. He’s always had a fascination with humanity, relating to us in a way the other angels seem incapable of, even the more colorful ones, or even the “good” ones. And right from the beginning too. The Sam Hain ep where Uriel wants to annihilate the town, and the conversation Cas has with Dean at the end about how they’d been ordered to do whatever Dean told them, and then Cas’ confession that he was praying Dean would choose to save the town, and how Cas isn’t a hammer… I dunno. I just think he’s been relating to humanity for a long time. And with Naomi’s comment about just how long she’d been sanitising Cas’ brain… I think, either Castiel was created with a soul, or a very very long time ago he began developing one. Perhaps a soul is something that humans just have, but angels can learn. And Castiel is that rarest of angels who actually chose to learn, and when we first met him in s4 he already had his own soul.
> 
> I hope you guys don’t mind me cutting most of the post but it was getting long…
> 
> I always theorized that angel grace and human souls aren’t essentially different. Angels like to think that they’re substantially different than humans, but are they really? Anna talked about angels as marble statues that don’t enjoy chocolate or sex–she described them as emotionless. But are they really? Or they’re just convinced they are? (And anyway I think Anna is a biased source of information on angels.) I think angels don’t need human souls to be able to experience human-like emotions. They can feel them–in a different way than humans, as Cas says, but still they can–but they  _repress_  them. Wasn’t it obvious ever since the beginning of the angel arc? Uriel was anything but an emotionless marble statue. Zachariah was anything but an emotionless marvel statue. I think that, given the opportunity, angels drop the repression–Zachariah felt authorized to act however he wanted because he needed to get the job done (getting Dean to say yes), Gabriel pretended to be someone else, and look at after the falling spell–so many angels took the opportunity to experience human things.
> 
> Hester, who pretty much called Castiel corrupted by Dean; Naomi, who told Castiel he was broken–would you call them emotionless? Would you call them  _really_  that different from Castiel or from humans?
> 
> Yeah I know I’m shifting the topic–but honestly I have side-eyed the soul business in the show since s6 and assuming a sort-of equivalence between human souls and angel grace kind of solves some of the problems I have with the way souls work in Supernatural.
> 
> Since season 6, we discover that soul and consciousness aren’t coincident. Which always made me iffy because isn’t the soul supposed to be  _you_  without the physical body–the  _you_  that goes to heaven or hell and that only leaves a lifeless flesh body? How do you ‘lose’ your soul? Sure, the soulless Sam arc was fascinating for this very reasons, but I never really liked the idea of a soul as something ‘accessory’ to the self. Then the Carver era complicated things showing us that everyone is effected differently from ‘losing their soul’.
> 
> I think that a (not total of course, just partial) equivalence between angel grace and human soul makes the thing work, as angel grace isn’t an angel’s consciousness but something that ‘adds’ something to the angel’s self. It’s something fundamental for an angel to be an angel, but it’s accessory if we’re talking about an angel’s consciousness and personhood. Without their grace, an angel is no longer an angel, but is still themselves. A different version of themselves, like a soulless human is different than they were with their soul, but still  _that person_  in a basic way.
> 
> If you accept that the lines between angels and humans are more blurred than the angels want you to think, then you can explain why there’s so much variety in how angels experience emotions and ‘human things’, just like there’s variety in how humans are affected by losing their souls, etc.
> 
> So a grace-less, newly human Cas would have a soul, since he’s human–but he isn’t really that different from himself when he’s an angel, right? He experiences some things (both physical and emotional) more strongly, but it’s still pretty much the same. Because his grace isn’t really that different from a human soul. Once he’s gotten angel grace back, I think that it’s possible that soul and grace have just mixed together, since they’re made from the same stuff, so to speak. Or, like, imagine that his angel grace and his human soul are not like oil and water, but like, say, alcohol and water…
> 
> A graceless Metatron, on the other hand, might have not developed a soul because his self wasn’t “soul prone” when he was an angel either, or have just developed a half-assed soul. Let’s not forget that he did experience hunger, according to Robbie’s Don’t Call Me Shurley (he’s looking for food in the dumpster). But then again soullessness comes in many ways (and I don’t think soulless individuals are immune to hungers/“famine” - I think there are many possible forms of ‘hunger’ and a truly ‘hungerless’ individual would be way more emotionless than at least most of the soulless individuals we’ve seen. And the horseman Famine was fucking with Dean anyway, imo.).
> 
> Ah, the soul business is fascinating.

I find these discussions fascinating, but I’m reminded of several old posts on the nature of angel grace, human souls, and their similarities from back during s10. Not sure if it’s helpful to this current discussion, but I thought I’d leave them here for anyone interested:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/116382722325/musings-on-the-season-finale-death-lucifer-and> (from just before the end of s10 when we were still crossing our fingers for a grace cure for the MoC)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/122596489640/hey-i-was-just-curious-cas-said-that-he-was-big> (from shortly after the s10 finale aired, and apologies to anyone reading this on my blog, but the formatting got borked when tumblr ran its last update. Just hit “reblog” to read the post in its proper order. You don’t actually HAVE to reblog it, just open the window).

Or just see these tags: [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on%20the%20nature%20of%20angel%20grace) and [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels%20and%20souls)

  

 

[on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [this is one of those weird fandom things where we've been discussing this for ages](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-one-of-those-weird-fandom-things-where-we%27ve-been-discussing-this-for-ages) [and it's just time for the discussion to become relevant again](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it%27s-just-time-for-the-discussion-to-become-relevant-again)[but hey look! I've got handy clicky-links this time around!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-hey-look%21-I%27ve-got-handy-clicky-links-this-time-around%21)

[Sep 8, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150135359685/spadeart-castiels-back-up-battery-and-how)

20 notes

[spadeart](http://spadeart.tumblr.com/post/150112880922):

> Castiel’s back-up battery, and how Gabriel might have survived. This is part meta, part headcanon, and part wild speculation.
> 
> I found lots of meta about Castiel and the likelihood that he now has a soul. There is some difference of opinion on when/how he got that soul, but the general consensus is that, yes, he has one. I really like the idea that he developed it over time (that maybe it isn’t even fully formed yet) because of his unique situation, being that he’s not just an angel stuffed in a person suit. Not since he got exploded at the end of season 4. That’s his body now, shiny and remade (and re-remade, sheesh) just for him, and it’s as much his form as is his True Form angel self. He’s grown roots (a soul) that anchor him in that body, perhaps without even realizing it. Sometimes I wonder if he can even leave it all, any more than a human could.
> 
> What does this have to with batteries, and Gabriel? We know in Supernatural that human souls are seen by many Not Human entities as a source of power. And depending on how you use them, they can be the boost for when you’re fighting an enemy stronger than you, or the fuel for a bomb. Or maybe something a little less dramamtic, like the AAAs you stick in the remote to tune into the channel you want. Like, say, the cooking channel. Poor Cas misses the taste of peanut butter, maybe if his soul batteries get fully charged he could enjoy it again. Or maybe having his grace intact overrides them, keeps the circuit from closing. He did sleep when the stolen grace was failing.
> 
> So what happens when Castiel’s little AAAs are fully charged? I have this idea of Cas getting injured in a fight, maybe against Lucifer, something that would/should kill am angel. But rather than dying and giving Chuck gray hairs (Again?! Son, didn’t I just resurrect you last week?!) Castiel survives. Not because his angel side hasn’t been terribly wounded, but because with the grace blown, the back-up batteries are online!
> 
> (A few weeks after I thought about this, I read a fic that was mid season 11, that had Cas survive as a human after something like that, but I can’t remember the fic title or if the author made any connection to a souls being the cause of his survival.)
> 
> So my Gabriel theory/headcanon works along similar lines. Gabriel also spent a lot of time playing Loki, trickster god. Like, a lot, far longer than Cas spent playing human. If Castiel’s immersion in a human body caused a human soul to form and for Castiel to basically mutate into a human/angel hybrid, maybe Gabriel merged into his Loki persona. And instead of growing a human soul, he grows whatever the soul equivalent for a trickster deity would be. The 9volt to Castiel’s AAAs. (And his remote has presets to the Food Network and the Casa Erotica channels)
> 
> And when Lucifer stabbed him, Gabriel’s angel half, his grace, was either destroyed or nearly destroyed, but that trickster battery kicked in. Add that to the fact that Kali has some of Gabriel’s blood (with whatever little bits of particulate angel grace that might include) and there are so many details already laid out in canon that could be used to explain how Gabriel survived an angle blade to the chest, charred wings on the floor or not.
> 
> Dude, Dabb and co, let’s make season 12 the season where everybody lives! :D
> 
> Also, I find it hilarious that autocorrect keeps changing Lucifer to Lucie.
> 
> Also, also, tag [@obsessionisaperfume](https://tmblr.co/m4s7bC896-ecbcK4ymVe-gA). There, it is messy and I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but it’s typed and posted!

  

 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [gabriel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gabriel) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [i like this comparison to grace as batteries especially after cas's stolen grace debacle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-like-this-comparison-to-grace-as-batteries-especially-after-cas%27s-stolen-grace-debacle) [i love this sort of speculation to bits :)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-love-this-sort-of-speculation-to-bits-%3A%29)

[Sep 13, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150362342475/awed-frog-mittensmorgul-eliciaforever-how)

299 notes

[awed-frog](http://awed-frog.tumblr.com/post/150356349032):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150101887745):
>
>> [eliciaforever](http://eliciaforever.tumblr.com/post/150098927382):
>>
>>> How are they going to show Castiel’s past if he only got Jimmy’s vessel six years ago? Are they going to show him in other vessels? Like back further than Jimmy?
>>> 
>>> …I guess I’m imagining “Castiel’s past” as being the real actual  _past_  past. Like Olden Times. Like antediluvian we’re-still-working-on-soap-but-at-least-we’ve-invented-the-wheel past.
>>> 
>>> So the first Novak maybe? Maybe they’ll go all the way back to his first vessel, when the name literally meant, “Hey new bro.”
>>> 
>>> OH MY GOD that would be so cool though. I would love it if we got an episode that gives us some worldbuilding stuff about vessels.
>> 
>> I also am hoping we get some Biblical/pre-Biblical era Cas flashbacks. *and oh gosh for his sake i hope they’re into the era of YAY WE FIGURED OUT BATHING!* Then again, angels can just boop themselves clean, no soap required. So I guess he’s got that going for him. :D
>> 
>> We have no idea if he’s ever even taken a vessel before Jimmy. He could have, but then had the memories wiped by Naomi. He might not even remember it. It’s possible we’re going to see CAS finally get some of these memories back for himself.
>> 
>> Until proven wrong, I’m sticking to the opinion that Jimmy was his first vessel. He seemed so… awkward, like he was learning to pilot a vessel for the first time, but again, that doesn’t mean much considering the angel reprogramming we’ve since learned about. He also said that angels hadn’t visited the Earth for more than 2000 years when he first approached Dean, and even then he didn’t seem to think he’d need a vessel at first, what with the screechy/blindy trueform approach he attempted several times before getting the picture that Dean couldn’t understand him without the human filter a vessel provides. That alone had always led me to believe that Cas’s previous trips to Earth had been in the scary biblical True Angel Form, like all those angels that tried to reassure humans by telling them “Be Not Afraid” because they were just six interlocking flaming rings covered in eyeballs or whatever. Non-Euclidean eldritch horror angels ftw. Smiting Sodom and Gomorrah, flying across Egypt and killing the firstborns, invoking plagues and retribution… none of that would necessarily require a vessel, and might be all the more terrifying  _without_  a vessel, you know?
>> 
>> Then again, there was a time in the long-distant past where angels regularly hung out with humans. There’s a reason Nephilim were considered an abomination, because there was a time when there were a lot more of them running around. Angels may have regularly taken vessels back in the Olden Days before God yoinked them all back to Heaven and told them to leave the baby alone.
>> 
>> Whether Cas was one of the angels who had interacted with Humanity before, and if those were some of the memories that Naomi had specifically wiped, might be fascinating to explore.
>> 
>> Even if the episode only explores Cas’s more recent past, since borrowing Jimmy’s visage, there’s still a lot we don’t know about him. I would sincerely like to see some of the things he’s suffered through get addressed. Everything that’s led to his depression, thoughts of suicide, last season’s profound display of PTSD, I’d love it if an episode really addressed all that and maybe brought him a little peace and resolution over the horrible choices he was forced to make in impossible situations.
>> 
>> Confronting what it was really like for him to lose his grace and fall, what he suffered through after saying yes to Lucifer, what he was going through while the stolen grace burned him up, and what he’s left with now that his own grace has been restored.
>> 
>> Gah, there’s just  _so much_  you could do with a character that’s ostensibly 14 BILLION years old. I mean gosh, the things he’s seen…
>> 
>> I could probably write about him forever. :D
> 
> All of this, and Jesus, I could watch an entire  _series_ about Cas doing things. But if we’re talking rational speculation about season 12, I guess those flashbacks have to have a narrative purpose? And since apparently we won’t see a lot of Heaven, that means, to me, that Cas’ past will be tied a) to the Winchesters, b) to Lucifer, or c) to some weapon/object the hunting community needs now and Cas has stashed somewhere or interacted with.
> 
> I agree with [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) that it doesn’t seem likely Cas ever had a vessel before Jimmy, but, then again, Cas is a complete mystery, because on the one hand he really loves humanity (*tries to keep a straight face, fails*) and says he spent a lot of time watching humanity (uhm), and yet he seemed completely ignorant of the most basic things, including literature and cultural traditions. Which is another tick in the  _Never took a vessel before so only understood humanity from afar and weirdly_  column (or, even more intriguingly,  _Was kept in carbonite because of his troublemaking activities until the time came to unfreeze him and send him down to fetch Dean from Hell_  - but if he  _was_ annoying and strong-willed, why the heck did they send  _him_?), but, well.
> 
> (We should also consider the budget problems and danger of ridicule there always is in shooting a scene set in ancient Jordan or something…)
> 
> So, I don’t know - I think the episode won’t be about Cas’ history, per se, but will maybe show him interacting with some time-traveling Winchesters? Or maybe Lucifer managed to get his hands on Cas’ ‘hard drive’ when he was in Heaven, and he’ll bargain with it - give Cas his all his memories back in exchange for…?
> 
> But ideally, I’d really like to see him in a toga. 
> 
> Or, you know - to see his true form.
> 
> (Sigh.)

Yeah, sadly the more I think about this, the less likely they are to introduce a fascinating past vessel for Cas. It would be difficult to make it plot-relevant to the current time (unless this past is only shown in very brief flashbacks to establish context), and I have a hard time imagining they’d open such a HUGE can of worms by introducing a completely new side of Cas that we’ve never seen before just for the sake of a few contextualizing flashbacks. It would ask more questions than it could possibly answer in a single episode.

That particular setup worked in, say, 10.16, because the flashbacks established the entire motive/character of the ghost they were hunting, but Cas isn’t a one-off character the boys are gonna eliminate by the end of the episode. We already know so much about him, and more importantly, we are deeply invested in him as a character. A couple of glimpses into the past would just be frustrating rather than truly enlightening. At least, I think they likely would be.

Though I would definitely not be opposed to seeing him in a toga… for science.

I don’t think a vision of his true form would be out of the question though. Since he’s been asked whether he’s a man or an angel, it might even be plot relevant, recalling his form before he became bound to his body in a way no other angel ever has, which has been one of the factors that led to his angel brothers questioning whether he’s even still one of them at all…

And truly, I’d hope a Cas-centric episode would focus on his current situation more than any potential distant past memories. Even memories recovered from Naomi’s tinkering. It was implied that he’d been repeatedly reprogrammed every time he’d rebelled before, and by the angels’ reaction to his current situation, I assume that means he was never allowed to progress to this point before, either. Even if he’d considered rebellion to this degree in his past, I think he would’ve been sent to boot camp and reprogrammed long before he got to this point, making any past experiences not entirely relevant to his current situation.

Naomi’s been gone for 3 years at this point. Cas is at least 3 years post any attempt at reprogramming. He’s evolved more than he ever has at any point in his past. He’s been brought back in his own body at least 3 times and he’s no longer “separate” from it. I’m not entirely sure he can even leave his body anymore, and I would dearly love to know more about his current state, mentally, physically, and metaphysically, than any potential distant past the story might touch on very briefly and then never refer to again.

I’m all aboard the Cas Needs To Be Happy Now Despite His History train. :D

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[yeah i'd be thrilled to explore his distant history but it might be harder than just leaving it alone in canon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeah-i%27d-be-thrilled-to-explore-his-distant-history-but-it-might-be-harder-than-just-leaving-it-alone-in-canon) [because there is just /so much/ of it to potentially find interesting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-there-is-just-%2Fso-much%2F-of-it-to-potentially-find-interesting) [technically and production-wise it might also be problematic to introduce ancient history to the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/technically-and-production-wise-it-might-also-be-problematic-to-introduce-ancient-history-to-the-show) [and plot-wise i think it could bring up more questions than it could ever potentially answer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-plot-wise-i-think-it-could-bring-up-more-questions-than-it-could-ever-potentially-answer) [because unless they're planning major arcs of cas recalling his lost memories or pulling snippets of his history](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-unless-they%27re-planning-major-arcs-of-cas-recalling-his-lost-memories-or-pulling-snippets-of-his-history) [i think what's actually potentially plot-relevant has mostly happened to him in the last 8 years or so](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-what%27s-actually-potentially-plot-relevant-has-mostly-happened-to-him-in-the-last-8-years-or-so) [but yeah that's just me and i'm sure others would disagree](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-yeah-that%27s-just-me-and-i%27m-sure-others-would-disagree) [but i could also watch the This Is Your Life Castiel show on an endless loop](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-could-also-watch-the-This-Is-Your-Life-Castiel-show-on-an-endless-loop) [give me ALL OF THIS I would gladly watch every moment of his 14 billion years unfold](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/give-me-ALL-OF-THIS-I-would-gladly-watch-every-moment-of-his-14-billion-years-unfold)

 

 


	36. Chapter 36

[Sep 20, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150703793070/i-feel-like-im-alone-in-this-but-to-me-cas-is)

10 notes

**Anonymous asked: i feel like i'm alone in this, but to me cas is misha and nobody else, i just can't and don't want to see someone else playing cas :/**

Yeah, I feel you on that. I think even CAS feels like he’s Misha (or Jimmy, or that current body). For the purposes of a flashback to a distant past, though, I would be fascinated to see him in an alternate vessel. But again, I’m not convinced he’s ever had a vessel before 2008 when he borrowed Jimmy, so…

I’m also not sure that Cas can even leave his vessel anymore. We haven’t seen him do so since s4 when he jumped into Claire, and then back into Jimmy. And that was before he was blown up for the first time and that vessel was remade FOR HIM, WITHOUT JIMMY’S SOUL IN THERE WITH HIM. I think it really is a part of him now.

But that’s just me. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong in s12 (but I really don’t think so). I don’t think we have anything to worry about Cas permanently (or even temporarily) taking another vessel.

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)

 

[Oct 28, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152436296575/i-think-its-possible-that-mary-remembers-heaven)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think it's possible that Mary remembers heaven without really ~remembering heaven~ bc it would've been 33 years of being suspended in her happiest memories on a loop and I'd assume that when the system works correctly the person doesn't really realize that they're in heaven? They just feel like they're in that perfect moment as it happened? And for mary her happiest memories were likely all post-hunting so she's been experiencing the best parts of her domestic life on loop for 33 years...**

Yup. ^^^ Because even in BOBBY’s heaven he was content to just keep on keeping on, enjoying his idea of a perfectly happy eternal Tuesday afternoon, until something broke in to that happiness to make him aware of the fact that it was just a dream (or heaven, whatever, same difference, really).

He was perfectly capable of reassessing his situation and seeing it clearly for what it was after that point.

Which is also why I’m not particularly fussed over whether she actually remembers her heaven or not, or what it actually contained. It’s a closed loop of a system that began and ended on November 2, 1983, and will never be the same place it was before, whenever she ends up returning there.

As a reference point to her current state of mind, it’s still useful to look back on what may have been her happiest memories to that point, but she’s alive again now. And things might be difficult for her to reconcile for her right now, but hopefully there is a point in her future where she’ll begin laying now new happy memories to experience in heaven. I think she’s already got a few, to be honest. It hasn’t all been pain and misery for her since she came back.

[spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [because i don't have a better tag for heaven stuff pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-don%27t-have-a-better-tag-for-heaven-stuff-pffft) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

[Oct 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152523825550/i-dont-get-some-things-rn-does-mary-remember-her)

8 notes

**Anonymous asked: I dont get some things rn: Does Mary remember her heaven or not? I thought in the first ep she said she didnt? But last ep she described it.. also do her and John share heaven or not? I saw some people thingk she implied it this week but I dont see it, she talked John AND Sam, Dean being her heaven and if John were her soulmate she'd know the future cause like Jimmy/Amelia they can exchange information being more than just memories.**

Hi there!

I’m not sure if what Mary said there was an actual “description” of her heaven, but she’s been reading the journal, and I’d bet money that there’s at least a few pages in there about heaven and what Sam and Dean have learned about it.

I know a lot of folks believe that Mary and John are soulmates, just based on the fact that they were paired up by cupids. But to me that is just so horrifyingly icky a thought, given their obvious marital difficulties and the fact that in Dean’s heaven it was made clear that John and Mary had even split up for a time, even if it was just a few days. Dean’s line about how their marriage was only “perfect” after Mary died and John was able to elevate her memory to sainted status just seems to confirm, at least for me, that they were most definitely not soul mates.

I mean, if your 4-year-old can tell you’re having trouble, you’re probably having trouble.

And Mary DID state in 12.01 that she didn’t recall anything after she burned. But what she did recall was her life before that, her family, her children. If she understands that heaven is a place where you relive your happiest memories, and  _these_  are what she considers her happiest memories, perhaps she’s just making that  _assumption_  that that’s what she was reliving in Heaven for the last 33 years.

Because that may even have been what Dean outright told her when she pondered where she may have been for the last 33 years, you know? If he’d insisted she’d been in Heaven, she may have come back with something like, “Well, that is a nice thought, but…” And I’m sure Dean would’ve taken the opportunity to explain that no, Heaven is a real place and it’s basically happyland 24/7.

I just… maybe she even had a vague sort of gut instinct about it? I don’t know. But I, personally, am convinced that even if there was a version of John in her heaven, it wasn’t the real, actual John. Just like the Sam and Dean in her heaven were not the real, actual Sam and Dean. Since, you know, they’re both still alive.

And what you said about Jimmy and Amelia, how Amelia was able to tell Jimmy about what had happened since his death, yes 100%. If John had been in Heaven with Mary, he would’ve had a lot of esplainin to do. Most people in heaven don’t even seem to realize they’re in heaven, you know? They just go along for the ride. Bobby sitting in his heaven reading a book, listening to music, relaxing in his chair, until something OUTSIDE their heaven breaks into the memories. All the surly Bobbies wandering out into the hall in a state of confusion… while Jimmy and Amelia seemed aware of their situation, and were just happy to be reunited, rather than living out past memories they were able to make new ones together.

And that doesn’t seem to have happened with Mary. I think the comment about her “heaven” was more about her theory as to what she’d been pulled from before she died in the fire. THAT was what she pictures her “heaven” being. The white picket fence life she’d carved out for herself before a demon stole it all from her. I can’t resolve that (at least not from what we’ve learned so far this season) with her actually remembering what happened to her between November 2, 1983 and the present when she appeared in that park.

Maybe as the season progresses we’ll discover that she actually does have some very real memories of heaven, but I don’t even think it’s pertinent to the plot. It was enough to create the emotional depth behind her reason for leaving the bunker for a while, but I don’t think it’s actually going to affect her future development. It’s one of those things about her past that she has to deal with, yes, but like that mother in 4.15 who was so depressed and traumatized by the death of her son because she kept feeling his presence around her, she’s not going to be able to come to terms with the fact that she’s alive  _now_ , and that she’s clinging to ghosts of the past, until she’s able to let that old life go to a certain extent.

[spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [not a john winchester appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/not-a-john-winchester-appreciation-blog) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[again i don't have a proper heaven tag so...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/again-i-don%27t-have-a-proper-heaven-tag-so...) [i do have a couple of soulmate tags tho](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-do-have-a-couple-of-soulmate-tags-tho) [and i've been wondering what actual facts we have in canon about soulmates... and we have surprisingly few](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27ve-been-wondering-what-actual-facts-we-have-in-canon-about-soulmates...-and-we-have-surprisingly-few)[because claiming cupid matches = soulmates just did not sit right with me and now i know why](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-claiming-cupid-matches-%3D-soulmates-just-did-not-sit-right-with-me-and-now-i-know-why) [i mean this would go a long way to proving that cupid matches aren't necessarily soul mate matches](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-this-would-go-a-long-way-to-proving-that-cupid-matches-aren%27t-necessarily-soul-mate-matches) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Oct 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152528119555/i-know-a-lot-of-folks-believe-that-mary-and-john)

96 notes

**Anonymous asked: "I know a lot of folks believe that Mary and John are soulmates, just based on the fact that they were paired up by cupids" ??but its not canon that canon cupids= soulmates? A human soul generates a heaven when they die and soulmates share one and the same. No cupid has ever been involved there that seems..random. Yeah, we dont have a lot on soulmates but imo what we have is straight forward fandom often makes it out to be complicated cause they want their X/X are soulmates theory to remain true**

Yeah. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written on angels, soulmates, cupids, and heaven are in those tags I stuck on that last post on the subject. To sum up:

  * Soulmates are really rare. Most people have their own heaven, no matter how much they loved their loved ones.
  * Peoples’ loved ones appear in their individual heavens as memories, not as actual real people (like the other people Sam and Dean encountered in their individual heavens, including Mary, I don’t think ANYONE is about to argue that the family that Sam had Thanksgiving dinner with were his soulmates, right?)
  * Cupids didn’t put people together because they were soulmates destined to be together, they put people together for Heaven Reasons. John and Mary needed to produce Sam and Dean to fulfill the conditions necessary for the apocalypse to proceed as scheduled. And that for me seals the deal, because the idea of a soul mate is a kindred spirit, the other half of your soul, with whom you feel at peace at at home and everything just feels  _right_  with them. That DOES describe Jimmy and Amelia, but to me doesn’t describe Mary and John  _at all_.



It actively  _hurt_  Jimmy to have to lie to Amelia about where he’d been when he disappeared after saying yes to Cas. It  _hurt_  Amelia to think that Jimmy was lying to her. He’d tried to tell her the truth, but it was so outlandish she couldn’t bring herself to believe him, until a demon showed up in their living room and tried to kill them.

Mary’s entire foundation for her relationship with John was based on a lie.

I know some folks have pointed to Amelia’s treatment of Claire and her drive to find Jimmy after 4.20 as a parallel to John’s grief and vengeance mission in the wake of Mary’s death, but I don’t think it was, really. Other than in a compare/contrast kind of way.

Yes, they both treated their children abysmally and set out on these impossible quests for revenge/answers, but while Amelia was searching for  _Jimmy_ , John was out for  _revenge_. They’re almost polar opposite missions. One was borne out of love and heartbreak, the other out of hatred.

Basically the entire notion that John and Mary were soul mates is so profoundly distasteful to me. Yes, Mary loved him. And she’d spent more than a third of her life with him, had two sons they both loved together, and were building a life together (despite some pretty significant bumps in their relationship). And his death is shocking and fresh in her mind. Yet she’s already moved her wedding ring from her finger to a chain around her neck.

This isn’t to say that she didn’t love John. This is to say that the simple touch of a cupid bringing together two people for heaven’s purposes to breed Sam and Dean just adds a layer of ewwwwww to the notion that these two random people were  _forced_  to love each other to a certain extent by outside influences. And I hope to hell that’s not what “soul mates” actually are.

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [poor jimmy novak had no idea what he was signing up for](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/poor-jimmy-novak-had-no-idea-what-he-was-signing-up-for) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

[Oct 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152533300785/im-bad-at-remembering-canon-but-are-angels)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm bad at remembering canon: but are angels involved in the creation of heavens? I had the impression, from what I remember, that angels dont have the same level of access and ease in human heaves as theyhave over the rest of heaven, that just like angels have ot have consent human heavens are "protected from the influence of angels**

Howdy, and this is exactly my kind of question. I love trying to make sense of the metaphysical crap on this show. :P

Short answer: It is a mystery.

Long answer: Based on the fact that Grigori angels were able to “feed” off human souls and gain access to the energy and consuming to increase their own power (sorry I was just reading the 10.20 transcript to answer another question, so this is fresh in my mind):

> Tamiel: Your souls are little slices of Heaven, that are, if properly kept, very delicious meals. Can last for years, decades even.

While Tamiel was feeding on Amelia’s soul, she was “reliving” that little slice of her own personal heaven with Jimmy.

So as far as what “creates” an individual soul’s heaven, I’m gonna say, “their own soul.” The structure of heaven that we see the angels walking around in, that resembles an office building with many doors to individual heavens, is just one way to “look” at something that likely has a non-euclidean structure, and therefore would be really mind-bending to try and visualize…

Dean was able to find the Axis Mundi and drive his way to Sam’s heaven, and then eventually to the Garden at the center of Heaven (and since the Axis Mundi was also represented by a toy race car track in a closet, a postcard tacked to a wall… you get the idea, it’s all a metaphor).

Zachariah seemed to have some limited access to various heavens, having searched for Sam and Dean (searchlights outside one location in Sam’s heaven, actually pursuing them through the woods a bit later). And Cas was able to communicate with them through the radio and then a television.

I do think that each person’s heaven is a blank slate until they show up and their soul gets plugged in and turns on the memories.

Is that a good analogy? I don’t know. It makes sense to me, but that still doesn’t explain why the angels are always using that weird little scanner thing to check on various doors. What are they checking on? Why? I have no idea. I’d love to know, though. Because I think much of heaven’s power comes from the huge electrical grid of billions of interconnected individual heavens. Which is both fascinating and a little chilling, you know?

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Dec 10, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154293856550/i-dont-know-why-so-many-people-was-complaining)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: i don't know why so many people was complaining about angels sudden powers of being able to read minds, detect when someone is lying or erase memories uh all those things are canon, for once that BL didn't suck much at continuity lol and here I am instead trying to figure out why the writers have decide to let cas keep some of his powers while losing others, because all feels so random and anticlimatic**

Hmm, as far as I know, the only power Cas no longer has is flying (or for all intents and purposes, any power of transportation through time or space, i.e. things that we’ve always associated with angel wings).

As far as we know, everything else is still intact, and the show proves that regularly.

Right now, though, it’s coming down to a matter of choice for Cas. I’ve wrote so much about Cas and humanity and free will and choice and whether he wants to live as an angel or a man, who is cas, and where does he belong, that I can completely understand why he’s chosen to do things in “the human way.” He’s deliberately making a choice to hunt like a human. He’s not blowing in, head-booping people for the information he needs and then running off like the cold and calculating angel he once was. He’s not capturing and torturing demons (or people, for that matter) for information. HE IS CHOOSING TO BE MORE HUMAN.

It works for Sam and Dean, after all.

*massive flashbacks to [9.06](http://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/118706061899)*

*cries about Steve*

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 9.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.06) [steve sales associate of the lord](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/steve-sales-associate-of-the-lord) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is)


	37. Chapter 37

[Jan 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155469546025/omg-lucifer-was-trying-to-create-a-nephilim)

97 notes

**Anonymous asked: Omg Lucifer was trying to create a nephilim! That's why he's suddenly interested in sex! He needs the nephilim for a vessel!**

[bold-sartorial-statement](http://bold-sartorial-statement.tumblr.com/post/155458136233/omg-lucifer-was-trying-to-create-a-nephilim):

> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/155363160927/omg-lucifer-was-trying-to-create-a-nephilim):
>
>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155359460360/omg-lucifer-was-trying-to-create-a-nephilim):
>>
>>> [bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/155358414123/omg-lucifer-was-trying-to-create-a-nephilim):
>>>
>>>> Ooooh Nonny are you suggesting that Lucifer carefully planned the whole thing? Purposely knocking up poor Kelly specifically so he could create a Nephilim that would be a vessel for him?
>>>> 
>>>> Does that work? Could a Nephilim be a strong and permanent vessel? I don’t think that is show canon but its a very interesting theory, seeing as Nephilim are born and don’t require their own vessels but would still be naturally far more powerful than humans…hmmmm….. 
>>>> 
>>>> The one thing I am looking forward to coming out of this freaky Nephilim story is finding out more about them as a whole. We know very little about Nephilim and their power other than the girl that Cas and Metatron killed, so it will be good to find out more.
>>>> 
>>>> I knew it didn’t make sense for Lucifer to suddenly want sex. Its so very out of character for him so yeah, him having an ulterior motive other than “I just want to try this” seems more in character.
>>> 
>>> This was actually one of my first thoughts. It seemed clear from his internal monologue scene inside the President’s head that he knew he couldn’t just screw around like he did with Vince, blowing off his vessel’s responsibilities. This wasn’t some washed up rock star known for having attitude problems that could be brushed off with an  _oh that’s just how temperamental rock stars are_. He really needed to nail the part, because the president is powerful, but his position is also tenuous and highly visible. If he began acting out of character, those closest to him would begin to question whether he’s of sound mind, or fit to serve. It wouldn’t be long before the charade would come crashing down. And Lucifer couldn’t just start bumping off everyone who questioned him on it, you know? He wants to retain the power, theoretically. He needs to play the part (at least outwardly).
>>> 
>>> And that meant keeping his close adviser (and surprise! secret girlfriend!) believing that he was still the man she’d been sleeping with. Either that, or kill her, and he already had one mysterious death on his hands. A second one in less than 12 hours would’ve been highly suspicious. So, he slept with her.
>>> 
>>> The nephilim plot didn’t even seem to occur to him until SHE mentioned how she hoped to have a “real” public relationship with him someday, and what a good father she thought he’d be.
>>> 
>>> Whether his intention was to create a nephilim just for the IT’S AN ABOMINATION factor, because that alone seems to have Heaven freaked out, or for the potential of being not only a powerfully strong vessel for Lucifer (that also had a genetic legacy linked to a man we’re given to believe is the most widely beloved president in history), but also a legacy for Lucifer to continue his domination on earth after the current president.
>>> 
>>> (and I was also remembering that this is canonically a universe that Godstiel sort of wiped out a lot of organized hate groups in, this is a baseline Nicer Place To Live on that ground alone, despite having a monster population… so their president there having that kind of support from most of the country makes me think he’s probably a relatively reasonable dude. what would his legacy look like if Lucifer could’ve kept up the charade?)
>> 
>> I agree with Mittens, he was just trying to play the president because he was aware that he just couldn’t act out of character while impersonating such a delicate role. I think that Kelly being the president’s lover took him by surprise, so he suddenly found himself having to play along with that part of president’s life and just went along with it because he didn’t really know how to handle that except to just stick to the script, so to speak.
>> 
>> (Should be interesting to analyze this storyline in the light of the concept of ‘script’ - Team Free Will already destroyed the script Lucifer wanted to stick with in season 5, now Lucifer is basically playing out scripts. It’s like when an autistic person follows implicit scripts to pass as neurotypical, Lucifer is following scripts to pass as the person he’s possessing, except that Vince left him more ‘freedom’ to play around because he was an over-the-top kinda unstable artist so only people very close to him - his sister and Tommy - noticed there was something wrong with him, while everyone else was fooled; the president is another thing entirely, so Lucifer needs to be more careful).
>> 
>> I want to add that I think that the decision to make a nephilim is less about giving the middle finger to God by producing an ‘abomination’ and more about giving the middle finger to God by  _creating life_ (should actually be ‘generate’ in correct theological/philosophical terms, but we’re talking technicalities).
>> 
>> Kelly said that when she told the president/Lucifer that she was pregnant, he reacted saying that ‘it was the first time he ever created something’. I think this is where we can extrapolate Lucifer’s motivations, i.e. the usual motivation: he’s a dick with a beef with God over God’s favoritism towards humans. Creating life is God’s thing, generating life is humans’ thing. Angels don’t create, God is the creator and he created humans in his image  _giving them the power to generate (=create by human means) life._
>> 
>> So God made humans more similar to himself than he made angels! Lucifer obviously can’t be pleased with that. Animals can do something ‘divine’ that angels can’t? Not nice for Lucifer. Kelly’s comment about making a baby gave him the idea - the only way for an angel to “create” is to make a child with a human. Since Lucifer has been driven by his resentment towards God all along, I see his action as some sort of gesture of spite-slash-tantrum-slash-mocking towards God and his predilection of humans. Impregnating a human woman with the literal spawn of the devil, imo, is the ultimate middle finger to God he can make. Not because a nephilim is an abomination per se (who even decided that it’s an abomination? I doubt it was God, who hanged around with girlfriends and boyfriends, rather it seems an angel thing stemmed from anti-mud monkey prejudice, after all Cas finds out about it because the angels start screeching…) but because creation is about love: God created humans out of love, humans create children (technically) out of love. Angels can’t make that gesture of love unless they make themselves equal to a human and make love to them. So an angel can create if they embrace ‘humanness’ so to speak, that’s why stuck-up angels despise the idea of nephilim. And Lucifer does the thing to mock the whole idea of creation-love. At least primarily. He can probably think of ways to make a nephilim useful to him, but I think his main motivation is giving the finger to God.
> 
> Hmmm… if this is the first time he’s created something, what about the first demon? Wasn’t Lilith his creation, or doesn’t she count?

Yeah, he “created” demons, but I don’t think it was an act of creation so much as an act of destruction. He took a human soul and warped and twisted and cut into it until it was something else.

He took God’s creation, something of light, and damaged and tortured it until all that’s left was darkness and smoke.

Dean was in hell for 40 years, 30 being tortured, and 10 doing the torturing. We have an idea of what had happened to Sam’s soul after so long in the cage. It was referred to as “damage” and the like. And when his wall finally crumbled and Cas took on that damage to heal him, he was eventually able to heal it (maybe because grace is not quite the same as a soul? Maybe because it’s possible to “cure a demon” and this was similar to that? Who knows?)

I don’t think Lucifer thinks of demons as creations, but more like broken toys. He didn’t make them, just took something pure and befouled it. But the nephilim? That’s an act of pure creation. He helped bring a brand new soul (grace/soul hybrid? whatever) into existence.

[spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)


	38. Chapter 38

#  [Meta Question: What IS ‘Ghost Death’ anyway?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155678727455/meta-question-what-is-ghost-death-anyway)

[Jan 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155678727455/meta-question-what-is-ghost-death-anyway)

41 notes

[hazeldomain](http://hazeldomain.tumblr.com/post/155673241886/meta-question-what-is-ghost-death-anyway):

> [durenjtmusings](https://durenjtmusings.tumblr.com/post/155659934027/meta-question-what-is-ghost-death-anyway):
>
>> [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) -  and/or [@hazeldomain](https://tmblr.co/mkphb97RSbReLzTEsqMvlYg) (or anyone else) care to hazard a guess/opinion?  (This is too long for the limits of an Ask, so you get it in a text post.)
>> 
>> I’m trying to figure out what exactly HAPPENS when one salt and burns a ghost. For science…and internal consistency in my own writing.
>> 
>> Here’s what I’ve sorted from SPN canon (and yeah, I know I skipped some examples in cannon below, and I acknowledge that I am trying to make a logic chain from canon knitted by multiple writers out of Swiss cheese, but, whatever, here we go):
>> 
>> **Season 1:**  Establishes an SPN foundational point: salt an burn a human’s bones or the artifact a Ghost is attached to, it “cannot come back.”  The visual effects we get here - and throughout the series, implies that it is painful/uncomfortable for the Ghost. IE non-consensual. [Note that hte very 1st Ghost we encounter is NOT dealt with this way, but rather ‘resolved’ by forcing the ghost to ‘go home’ and face the consequences of her actions..]
>> 
>> **Season 2:**  - 2.01 In My Time of Dying: Establishes that a Ghost is a person’s spirit that has, for a range of reasons, “not moved on” with a Reaper when it was their time.
>> 
>> T!REAPER: Well, like you said. There’s always a choice. I can’t make you come with me.  But you’re not getting back in your body. And that’s just facts.   So  **yes, you can stay. You’ll stay here for years. Disembodied,**  scared, and over the decades it’ll probably drive you mad. Maybe you’ll even get violent.  
> !DEAN: What are you saying?  
> T!REAPER: Dean.  **How do you think angry spirits are born? They can’t let go and they can’t move on.**  And you’re about to become one. The same thing you hunt.
>> 
>> 2.16 Road Kill establishes a theoretical difference between NORMAL moving on and “Death for Ghosts” via salt and burn:
>> 
>> MOLLY: You hunt these things, but you don’t know what happens to them?   
> DEAN: Well, they never come back. That’s all that matters.   
> SAM: After they let go of whatever’s keeping them here, they … they just go. I hope someplace better, but we don’t know. No one does.   
> MOLLY: What happens when you burn their bones?   
> SAM: Umm… Well, my dad used to say  **that was like death for ghosts,** you know? But… The truth is, we still don’t know. Not for sure.
>> 
>> BUT that same episode showed that ghosts can just “let go” and “move on” without the salt and burn as Sam  _talks_  a ghost into moving on (a non-vengeful spirit whose bones are already cremated). This process looks peaceful ie: consensual.
>> 
>> **Season 4**  - In 4.15 “Death Takes a Holiday, We learn that ghosts exist in a “spirit world” much like our own but with different rules - also called  **“the veil.”** We also see a Reaper ‘take’ a ghost/spirit who was unable to move on due to demon’s messing with the local reaper. [So we know that whatever a Ghost/spirit is, is a thing a reaper can reap/move on.]  Again, this ghost, who was a little vengeful, is  _talked_  into moving on (consensual).
>> 
>> **Season 7**  - Bobby Dies and chooses not to move on - becomes a Ghost {7.12, 7.13, 7.17, 7.19, etc.} We learn things about ‘ghost energy management’ and another comment on “the Veil”:
>> 
>> DEAN: Wait a second. Don’t you think you should be saving your strength?  
> BOBBY: For what?  
> DEAN: I’m just saying you might want to slow down. You don’t look so hot.  
> BOBBY: I’m in the Veil. My Brad Pitt days are over.
>> 
>> 7.23 - We see Bobby “burn up” as the guys melt the flask he is attached to.  **[aka Ghost Death]**
>> 
>> **Season 8**  - 8.19 Taxi Driver, we learn that Bobby’s “soul” is in Hell (dragged there by demons) - it is freed and delivered to heaven. This establishes that  **a “Salt and Burn” does NOT destroy a human soul, but rather releases it.**..(from what?)
>> 
>> 8.23 heaven is ‘closed’ due to metatron’s spell [We later learn that this means souls cannot go to heaven]
>> 
>> **Season 9:** 9.07 - we get a very vengeful ghost  _talked_  into moving on, who CHANGES from nasty ghost demeanor to sweet mom before moving on (consensual).
>> 
>> TIMMY: Mommy, stop it!  Stop hurting people! You have to go.  Never come back.  I’ll be okay.  I promise.  
>  **GHOST MOM’s ghostly essence peels off, leaving GHOST MOM looking whole and human,** smiling tearfully at her son as she holds her arms out to him.  TIMMY (continues): I love you, too.  
> GHOST MOM fades completely away.
>> 
>> **Wait, what ‘PEELED OFF’ here? Is THIS what is destroyed in a ‘salt and burn’?** (and if so, wtf was that?)
>> 
>> Kevin dies in 9.10 and is given a hunter’s funeral “salt and burn” BUT we find out in 9.14 that he and all the others who have died since heaven closed are “stuck in the veil.”  **At this point we have a working definition of Ghost as “A human soul which is ‘stuck’ in the veil/spirit world and cannot move on to its final resting place**  (Heaven/Hell).
>> 
>> **Hypothesis:**  SO - given this definition, a “salt and burn” seems to FORCE a separation of a human soul from “the veil” - making them move on, and somehow preventing them from ever returning to the veil/spirit world.
>> 
>> This implies, however, that some ‘component’ of a ghost/human spirit is forcibly  LOST or changed in the process of a ‘salt and burn’ (and voluntarily given up in most other cases.)   **What IS that element?**  [We know it is not free will, as evidenced by Bobby’s actions in 10.17 Inside Man and Ashe’s actions in 5.16 Dark Side of the Moon.] So I ask again:
>> 
>> **“In your opinion, what exactly HAPPENS to the ghost/spirit when one salt and burns a ghost?”**
>> 
>> _Image ‘[Salt and Burn”](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fgingerbreadsagas.com%2Fportfolio%2Fsalt-and-burn%2F&t=YzI4ZDUxYzRjOGM1YTg2OWFhMzZhMmYxYmQ3MDZiNzcyY2Y3MDBiNyxPNmpkR0ZaOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F155678727455%2Fmeta-question-what-is-ghost-death-anyway&m=1) by “Rosa” Ryna Ordynat who baked it herself -  gingerbread, chocolate, beer cake, and melted candy._
> 
> OMG somebody classes me with Mittens. 
> 
> _Okydoke_  so after Bobby got pulled out of Hell we had definitive proof that ghosts are  _not_  destroyed by a salt-n-burn. 
> 
> From what I can tell, the shifting of souls between mortal coil/veil/afterlife isn’t an organic process so much as an intricate bureaucracy. It isn’t permanent, it isn’t unstoppable, hell, it isn’t even  _consistent._  
> 
> Bobby was supposed to go to heaven but somebody just sort of randomly snagged him on the way up and dragged him to hell. Presumably usually the angels prevent this from happening unjustly, but with the angels being busy and/or decimated at that time, stuff started slipping through the cracks. 
> 
> Ghosts are, as far as I can tell, improperly sorted souls. They’re wandering around in the veil either because they chose to stay, or because they can’t get to heaven.
> 
> The heaven closing thing was kind of a special circumstance so I’m gonna disregard it (though you’d think there would have been some angel/demon skirmishes during that time what with Hell seeking to snap up the excesses and Heaven being more or less powerless) and say that  _usually_  when a person stays behind, they’re able to stay because they have a ‘lifeline.’ Something they were particularly attached to on Earth. It could be a part of their own body, but it could also be something that they want looked after, such as a child they want protected or a murderer they want punished. Whatever it is, they have to be tethered to it at the time of death (or at the time of failed reaping and/or both) and they can’t switch it later. 
> 
> Burning or destroying that link (or seeing their unfinished business through) untethers them from the mortal world which forcibly bumps them out of the vale and into either heaven or hell. Seeing as they normally need an escort to those places I’m not sure exactly  _how_  that works. 
> 
> Maybe if they choose to move on, another reaper comes to guide them, but if its forcibly broken, the soul is just ‘set adrift.’ At that point it’s probably just up for grabs and the person’s gotta hope that an angel comes instead of a demon. Maybe this is how Bobby’s soul got re-routed.  

I think some of this confusion was needlessly introduced by the (wrong, imho) equation of Reapers with Angels in 9.03. Like, no. So, disregarding that bit of stupidly confusing bucklemming canon, I tend to go with the simplest explanation for all of this.

Ghosts are souls that for one reason or another couldn’t or didn’t move on after death. They’re either tied to a location, and object, a person… something blocks them from letting go and moving on.

I don’t think of reapers as “escorts” that have to carry the soul to its final destination so much as “guides” who help the soul understand that they’re dead so they CAN move on.

I like the lessons that Dean learns in 6.11, the way he and Tessa talk to the souls they’re reaping. They explain what’s happened, help the dead come to terms with the fact that they’re dead, and that typically is enough to “release” the souls from what would hold them to Earth.

For whatever reason, some souls are more stubborn. Either they refuse to let go (Bobby), they’re unable to accept what’s happened to them (Molly), they have unfinished business, be it borne of grief, fear, loss, whatever. And not moving on begins to affect them and warp them. The frustration of not being able to completely interact with reality anymore, the eventual loss of whoever or whatever they originally became trapped here for, whatever– it eventually begins to corrupt them like a layer of dust slowly encasing them and trapping them (like Timmy’s ghost mom).

When whatever is tethering them to this plane is resolved (whether through salting and burning, through emotional resolution, the righting of a wrong, through self-awareness, etc.), they’re finally able to move to whichever final rest they’d earned (whether a reaper is present to guide them or not, because at that point they’ve already released their grasp on this plane and sort of ~float away~ like a balloon whose string was cut).

Now taking into account the damage Metatron did with his spell, which Kevin’s ghost informed us (and later Tessa confirmed) completely screwed with the veil. Souls were not able to proceed through it and get into heaven. They weren’t necessarily trapped on earth, or tethered to it (but some probably were), but were stuck in between.

I think of the veil as the dimension occupied by Reapers, like Heaven is for angels and Hell is for demons and Purgatory is for monsters. The veil is supposed to be a transitory place (think King’s Cross Station from Harry Potter). Most souls just board the train and head to their proper destination, but Metatron’s spell tore up the tracks for the heaven-bound trains.

(I think souls destined for hell or purgatory weren’t affected by that spell at all)

It’s no wonder Tessa and the other reapers were going bonkers during s9, with all those souls crying out in confusion, and there wasn’t anything they could do to help them because their final destination was boarded up.

I also think Billie pulling all the souls out of the veil in 11.23, and then Chuck taking them all back, has officially put all those souls into heaven where they belong. I hope. Hopefully this has now fixed the veil problem too…

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [billie the reaper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/billie-the-reaper) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [and the veil too](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-the-veil-too)

 

[Feb 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156911420060/so-was-the-reason-cas-was-so-hurt-last-episode)

106 notes

**Anonymous asked: So, was the reason Cas was so hurt last episode was cuz he healed Ishim? Like, shouldn't angels be able to handle more than that? Cas always seems to be particularly weak... And I know Ishim was saying that's cuz of his relationship with humans, but it just seems weird that that would make Cas physically weaker.**

[goodfemalecharacters](http://goodfemalecharacters.tumblr.com/post/156842652561/so-was-the-reason-cas-was-so-hurt-last-episode):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156804632560/so-was-the-reason-cas-was-so-hurt-last-episode):
>
>> Well, we do know that Cas only has a small piece of his original grace. That’s all that was left after Metatron used most of it for the angel fall spell. We don’t know if he’s been able to “grow it back,” or whatever. In 10.02, he tells Cas, “But there is some of your mojo left. Not a lot… But enough.”
>> 
>> Enough to keep him alive. Enough to keep him from burning out. Cas has been in a rather precarious situation since getting it back in 10.18. His power is still limited, but he’s also not actively dying from being poisoned by stolen grace.
>> 
>> I think this is interesting with the introduction of the nephilim in s12, and also with the introduction of Lily Sunder.
>> 
>> Nephilim are creatures with both angel grace and a human soul, and Lily Sunder is “burning away” pieces of her own human soul to power angelic spells. They’re all weird blendings of grace and soul, angel and human, in three different ways.
>> 
>> Nephilim are supposedly inordinately powerful, but… we haven’t seen that in reality, at least not with the nephilim from 8.23. She was an adult, though, who in 12.10 (and way back in 1901) Castiel was prepared to kill a child nephilim before she was allowed to grow up to destroy worlds. That’s what angels had always believed about nephilim, and Cas had no reason to doubt his orders back then.
>> 
>> But what we saw in 8.23, Cas was reluctant to kill the nephilim for Metatron’s spell. He knew she really WAS innocent, and just trying to live her own life. He didn’t believe that she was secretly harboring that sort of danger to the world, and even called her an innocent. His opinions had already changed back then. This woman had been living her life quietly, probably the offspring of a “lesser” angel, and not imbued with the sort of power of an archangel’s child… Like angelkind fear that Lucifer Junior will possess.
>> 
>> In the aftermath of the shock of that heavenly announcement (that a HUGE amount of power went into the creation of the nephilim), his immediate fear was enough to bring back his original feelings about nephilim in general, that they’re terrifying abominations that must be destroyed at all cost… but…
>> 
>> Now that he’s learned the truth about Lily Sunder’s child, who he’d been unknowingly implicit in murdering as part of Ishim’s personal revenge plot against Lily, Cas is having reservations.
>> 
>> How did I get here? This was supposed to be about why Cas seems “weaker” than usual…
>> 
>> I think it boils down to this:
>> 
>> ISHIM: You know why we’re meant to stay away from humans? It’s not because we’re a danger to them– they’re a danger to us. Case in point.  
> CASTIEL: Well, my friendship with Sam and Dean has made me stronger.  
> ISHIM: You can’t really believe that.
>> 
>> Ishim uses Cas’s weakness after healing him as further proof that Cas has been “weakened” by his association with humanity, but by the end of the episode, Sam and Dean agree:
>> 
>> Dean: What Ishim said… You’re not weak, Cas. You know that, right?  
> Sam: I mean, obviously you changed, but it’s all been for the better, man.  
> Dean: And you have been with us every step of this long, crazy thrill ride. And no matter how crazy it got, you never backed down.  
> Sam: And that takes strength.
>> 
>> So yes, I think Cas is struggling with his mojo because he’s BEEN struggling with it for years. He really isn’t “all angel” anymore. But that’s not necessarily a weakness. Humanity isn’t not inherently weak.
>> 
>> Does that make sense? I think a lot of this seasons angel vs humanity dynamic is being written with this exact theme in mind.
> 
> Something I’ve been thinking about:
> 
> During the apocalypse, when Nick was burning out, you’d think that Lucifer could have coerced some lesser angel follower (like a Uriel for example) to be his new vessel. As a temporary thing, yeah, but it would have kept him on Earth for a little while longer.
> 
> But he never does.
> 
> Yet Cas is a viable vessel in season 11, which means that something has changed about him. An angel can possess him; Crowley can too.
> 
> So yeah, I think there’s something to be said about Cas’s human soul sticking around even once he became an angel again.

Oh my gosh… I just reread my original reply up there and realized I went so far off on my tangent I forgot to write about the other two angel/soul blends… >.>

Well, obviously one of them is Cas, but since he’s unique in the universe we don’t really have a precedent for knowing what will happen with him, like we do with nephilim. Same goes for Lily Sunder herself, who tears off and burns up bits of her own soul with angelic magic, the same way angels use their grace to power the same sorts of magic. So in a way she’s also a hybrid angel/human.

Okay. I needed to get all that out. I need to start proofreading these things before I post them. :D 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 10.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.02) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156806215645/flits-in-with-tea-and-donuts-as-much-as-id-love)

16 notes

**[trisscar368](https://trisscar368.tumblr.com/) asked: *flits in with tea and donuts* As much as I'd love to flail over domestic destiel (AHH), I need to hash something out about Castiel. Cas this episode was not able to recover from healing as quickly as he has in the past (even though we haven't had opportunity to see him healing a badly wounded angel... ever to my memory). Ishim wasn’t surprised that Cas was weakened, but I also think he was happy about it (his comment about “not feeling this good in millenia” of course makes me wonder about 1/**

> angelic scar tissue…) It’s a unique circumstance, but there’s been a trend since Cas lost his grace where he simply takes longer to recover. In fact I’ve been concerned about his ability to heal ever since Rowena’s attack-dog spell. The thing is, the whole trend (over the past… three? seasons now?) is reminding me of what happened in S5, when he was cut off from Heaven (which… is now in retrospect confusing me, because how, if cutting an angel off from Heaven entirely cripples them this way 2/
> 
> did neither Raphael nor Metatron… nor any other rogue angel group for that matter, try to cut Cas off again?). I know the meta squad has been discussing the possibility that Cas may have to choose to become human in the near future; indeed the notion that he might have a type of soul on top of his grace has been brought up in the general Nephilim discussion. But is there a chance that we might rather be faced with a Grigori!Castiel? I mean, I doubt the writers would go there, but… 3/

HI THERE. THANK YOU FOR THE DONUTS. I NEEDED THAT!

I actually just answered a few asks about Cas and his current apparent weakness… and one of them even brought up the fact that we’re seeing three distinct types of angel/human hybrid this season:

  1. the nephilim- a true angel/human hybrid
  2. Lily Sunder - who uses her human soul to power angel magic
  3. Cas - who had fallen and become human and then had his grace returned to him



And yeah, I mentioned the Grigori to Lizbob in one of our chats as seeming similar to how Lily was cannibalizing her own soul to work Enochian spells.

And with the fear inspired by an upcoming episode in which Dabb has hinted that “Cas seems more powerful than he should be…” I’m wondering if he’s going to try tapping into the power of his own soul in this way…

I mean, what a horrifying way to canonically prove that Cas does have a human soul, you know? And I think DEAN and SAM would be horrified at that, too… and of course it would lead to them actually using words to express this to Cas, because that’s how they roll this season.

I feel REALLY ambivalent about that bit of spec though, because YIKES for Cas! But really… this could be a HUGE moment for him, too…

I’d keep typing, but I’m afraid to…

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [trisscar368](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/trisscar368)

 

[Feb 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156818147820/heya-what-if-cas-turning-into-human-is-already-in)

17 notes

**[deletingpoint](https://deletingpoint.tumblr.com/) asked: Heya! What if Cas turning into human is already in process? As in every time he chooses humanity his grace fades a bit or rather transforms to the soul "material"; making his soul brighter and more powerful, but dimming and weakening the grace. (Love your thoughts :))**

Heck, angels have been telling him for YEARS that they don’t see an angel when they look at him… so… maybe?

I mean, back in 9.22, when Cas was still operating with his stolen grace, Josiah (aka Extra Crispy Angel) said this:

**Josiah:**  I would rather die than owe my life to you, Castiel. You play at being noble. You play at being one of us. But I look into your eyes and I don’t see an angel staring back at me.

Whether he meant that literally or metaphorically, I think the sentiment has been consistent since at least the beginning of s9.

But even going back to s7, in 7.21 Hester is furious, and tells Cas he’s “fallen in every way imaginable,” and then throws his lessons about Free Will back in his face, saying she’s the one choosing now, and she believed he deserved to die for his “crimes.” So… This has been an ongoing thing.

[spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [spn 9.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.22) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)

 

[Feb 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156848422490/im-not-sure-how-versed-you-are-in-angels-and)

10 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm not sure how versed you are in angels and angel lore, but I was rewatching 12x10 and Castiel said Akobel was a "seraphim of the sixth choir" and I was wondering if anyone had talked about this? Seraphs are usually listed at the 9th (highest) choir. Are they just using seraphim as a general term for angels, or am I missing something?**

Hey there. I think the first thing to remember when trying to figure out what sort of angel hierarchy chart Supernatural is working from is: Don’t.

Angel lore in OUR real-world religions is so mixed up and convoluted all on its own. I mean, look between the different Abrahamic religions and you’ll see the same name/entities listed as all sorts of different classifications, and entirely different classification systems, categories of angels, etc.

I mean, “Ishim” isn’t a single angel in Judaism, it’s a whole classification or choir of angels, yet on Supernatural it’s one dude.

So to me the entire exercise of attempting to figure out a hierarchy or ranking chart for the SPN universe is… sorta pointless? They use whatever terminology appeals to them in a given situation.

Cas has said in the past that he was a seraph, and we’re led to believe that that was a sort of middle rank between the cherubim and the archangels, but aside from that… ???????

I think the show has been intentionally vague about stuff like this, only explaining the sorts of details necessary to understand who was taking orders from whom at any given time (such as when Cas was initially in charge of Uriel, but was sort of “demoted” back in s4 for getting too close to the Winchesters… specifically Dean, or the fact that Zachariah was Castiel’s “superior.”)

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [i mean i don't even have a tag for angel hierarchy because it's always seemed incidental to plot](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-i-don%27t-even-have-a-tag-for-angel-hierarchy-because-it%27s-always-seemed-incidental-to-plot) [and what the needs of the plot are rather than an important worldbuilding structure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-what-the-needs-of-the-plot-are-rather-than-an-important-worldbuilding-structure) [i hope that makes sense >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-hope-that-makes-sense-%3E.%3E)

 

[Feb 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156894895360/do-you-think-that-chuck-made-that-rule-about)

94 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think that Chuck made that rule about angels not having sex with humans because that would be like raping the vessels? Angels that respect and value their vessels or live alone in their bodies seem to be rare and it feels like angels take the initial consent to mean that they can do whatever they want with their vessel's bodies... or maybe it's because 200000 years ago there was no birth control and the rule is now obsolete, Chuck just never clarified (because he's a bad father)**

You know, I think you’re on to something here. I can only imagine what it must be like for an angel to take a vessel for the first time. Strange, disorienting, overwhelming. And so, so tempting.

I mean, experiencing the pleasures of humanity was a strong enough lure for Anna to  _tear out her grace and fall_. Even through the filter of angelic grace, the temptation to experience human things must be overpowering if they stay in their vessels long enough.

I got the impression that Cas hadn’t taken up permanent (or even semi-permanent) residence in his vessel in 1901. He made it sound like it was only a quick trip to Earth to clear up that matter of a “nephilim,” and then he returned immediately to Heaven, leaving his vessel to live out the rest of her life in peace.

In fact, the only angel in Ishim’s old flight that seemed to really bond to his vessel in a personal way was Benjamin. I could understand why he wouldn’t abandon her. It was a relationship of mutual trust and devotion. But Ishim? He seemed to be intoxicated with “human” desires for Lily, and despite his hardline anti-human words,  _he still retained possession of his vessel for well over a century_. Even when he returned to Heaven, presumably. So did Mirabel.

I have a hard time imagining that either of them really engaged on a deeper level with the souls occupying their vessels, or there would’ve been no point for Castiel singling out Benjamin’s “unique” close bond with his vessel. Or at least he would’ve framed Benjamin’s story as applying broadly to all angels who inhabit their vessels long-term. But no, it was literally a plot point that Benjamin’s love for his vessel drove him extreme caution in dealing with other angels, for the sake of keeping her safe.

In earlier seasons we saw Cas partaking of human things like food and drink. We only see him complain about the taste of said food AFTER he’s lived for a time without his grace, as a true human. Because he had nothing to compare the taste with before. He never realized there was more to it all than just the molecules.

So what’s to stop angels from shirking their duties and taking advantage of their vessels’ hospitality? What’s to prevent them from becoming overwhelmed and just… becoming Balthazar? Falling into decadence and debauchery?

And at what cost?

The life and soul and free will of the human owner of their borrowed vessels.

As far as we know, Cas is the ONLY angel in a custom-built and otherwise unoccupied vessel. That is HIS BODY. And he’s in a unique situation. Every other angel (as far as we know) is sharing with a separate human soul.

Free will was included in the humanity kit.

And there’s supposed to be a sacred trust between an angel and their vessel. Chuck had to know that there needed to be consequences in place for abusing that trust. Angels were supposed to watch over the Earth. Their one job was to defend humanity, not to override the bodily autonomy of the person they’re using as a vessel.

It could’ve originally been a mandate to keep angels honest and true to their mission, despite the overwhelming temptation. Nothing’ll keep you at arms length from someone more than the threat of immediate death for crossing that line. One last measure of defense for the devout souls who entrust their bodies to angels.

Can you imagine the betrayal and violation of letting this supposed servant of God borrow your body, only to be along for the ride while your body was used for sexual acts against your will? Rape by deception, while essentially forcing the body and soul of the human who entrusted themselves entirely into your care to experience those acts against their will. Yeah, no wonder that’s their most sacred oath.

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [rape mention](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rape-mention) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156895866465/s6-was-all-about-the-souls-so-said-death-in)

85 notes

S6 was all about the souls (so said Death in 6.11). The untapped power of human and monster souls, both.

Bobby’s “soulonoscopy” in 6.18 that powered Cas up enough to bring Sam and Dean back from 1861 seems to operate on the same theory that allows Lily Sunder to “burn up” pieces of her own soul to perform Enochian spells.

My first thought on rewatching 6.18 just now was that Bobby apparently recovered from having his soul touched and used to power the magic there. He was back to “normal” by the time 6.19 begins. And hello Dabb! Since he wrote that episode (and another s6 soul-issues-relevant episode 6.04) and he’s now steering this bus, I can’t help but wonder if this is all going to become relevant in new ways, especially after 12.10 and Lily Sunder’s use of her own soul to power her magic.

If she just… stopped… would her soul recover from the damage she’s done to it? The way Bobby’s soul seemed to?

It’s also giving me thoughts about 10.20 and the Grigori, who Cas referred to as “an abomination” for having powered himself up by feeding on human souls for eons. The Grigori had supposedly been hunted to extinction for that crime, of devouring human souls for selfish means, to experience humanity through consuming those souls’ individual Heavens.

The Grigori told Claire that “there’s no fixing her,” meaning that the damage Amelia had suffered was irreparable, but then we’re immediately shown her arriving in her ACTUAL heaven, and she seems whole, healthy, and healed from whatever the Grigori had done to her.

The human soul is resilient.

I’m now wondering if s12 is exploring just  _how_  resilient.

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 10.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.20) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation)[s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux)

 

[Feb 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157531695790/i-cant-remember-does-dean-know-about-the-angel)

87 notes

**Anonymous asked: I can't remember. Does Dean know about the angel laying with a human taboo, or did the audience only hear about that?**

Hi there. I was curious about this too, and the transcript isn’t posted yet (ack!), so I finally had a chance to rewatch 12.10 to check for myself.

From the flashback scenes, I was under the impression that they occurred while Cas (and Lily) were telling their respective stories, so Sam and Dean may not have gotten a word-for-word exact rendering of the scenes, but the implication is that the “stories” we’re witnessing contained the information we were shown in flashback. Hence the “storytelling flashback” device.

So I started rewatching the entire episode, just because, and OH MY GOSH, can I hijack this reply for a few minutes to flail about the differences between Cas in 12.12 and certain direct parallels to Ishim in 12.10? I’m only about 1/3 into the episode so far, but so far these things have stood out to me so strongly that they may as well have been written in highlighter, or neon lights like the big glowing HOT COFFEE sign in the diner above Ishim’s head.

  1. Ishim accuses Cas of having no home and no family (and in 12.12 Cas finally believes that he truly DOES)
  2. Ishim receives a wound to his side (in the exact same spot Cas is wounded in 12.12)
  3. The wounds were delivered by someone who had just wanted to be left alone (Lily had just wanted to live safely with her daughter, Ramiel had just wanted to hang out and go fishing)
  4. Like Cas in 12.12, Ishim was unable to heal his own wound (he holds his hand up to it and extends his fingers like he’s trying, and like Cas said, “something’s wrong” and he was unable to heal himself.
  5. Both wounds were healed by an outside force, and after Ishim’s healed, he comments (and demonstrates with one-arm push-ups) that he hasn’t felt so powerful in a millennium, and Cas was visibly weakened. After Cas was healed, are we also to also assume he feels more powerful than he has in ages?
  6. Lily has a similar wound, which she heals herself by burning up a piece of her own soul.
  7. Cas beginning to come to terms with the fact that Sam and Dean are willing to go to the same reckless lengths for HIM that he’s willing to go to for THEM. That comes to fruition in 12.12. And then Dean says without hesitation that Cas is their family (remember squeeing over that three weeks ago? ‘Cause I do. :P)
  8. We essentially get TWO versions of this story (Ishim’s POV– the “story” he’d told Cas all those years ago in order to make him believe they were on a “righteous mission” from Heaven in killing May– and then Lily’s story, which still lacked ONE element of truth. All these years, she’d never understood WHY Ishim was able to convince the rest of his flight that May needed to die. She was SHOCKED when Sam revealed they believed her child was a nephilim. But that’s when we finally understood the full truth. How Lily began to understand that ISHIM ALONE was truly responsible for what had happened to her The rest of the angels were lied to). Only after hearing both are Sam and Dean able to observe the truth. In 12.12, we also see multiple “outside pov’s), after which Sam and Dean are finally able to “see the truth.” They’re still missing the key piece of the story… WHY MARY WAS SENT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
  9. Lily’s shock upon Cas saving HER life and killing Ishim instead. Sort of like everyone’s shock on Crowley saving Cas’s life by potentially putting himself at a disadvantage…
  10. (and 12.12 ended with the still-unresolved fact of WHY they raided Ramiel’s house in the first place… the larger betrayal is still afoot.)



So I should probably get back to answering your actual question here, yes? >.>

Castiel delivers the line to Akobel about the “most sacred oath,” He says, “You have lain with a human and you fathered a nephilim. You have broken our most sacred oath, and the penalty is death.” After Ishim enters the house and we hear Lily cry out and May scream, we return to Cas in the present telling this entire tale to Sam and Dean.

Cas says that they completed a mission, and Dean replies, shaking his head, “Some mission.”

We are left to believe that Cas related ALL THE INFORMATION THAT WE WITNESSED in that flashback in order for Sam and Dean to understand WHY going to Earth to murder a random little girl was the business of Heaven, you know? At a time when their presence on Earth was something they seemed to avoid at all costs. 

Would Cas have phrased the “death sentence speech” the same way while retelling the story? Quoting the bit about the most sacred oath?

Would he have mentioned that Akobel had to die because “He’d lain with a human and fathered a nephilim,” or would that just be an unremarked upon footnote to the story?

The fact that we’re shown Cas telling them both the beginning AND the end of the story is a visual “frame”bookending everything we see in the flashback. It’s a plot device that typically implies, “The story the character A is telling to the other characters is conveying the information you are seeing dramatized.”

As a plot device, we’re left to assume that EVERYONE WHO HEARD THE STORY knows all the information that was conveyed to us via the flashback.

So yeah, It’s safe to assume Dean knows. We’re SUPPOSED to assume that Dean knows.

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Mar 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158945459470/do-you-ever-remember-that-angel-who-gadreel-killed)

40 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you ever remember that angel who Gadreel killed who was his best friend when they were in heaven's prison? He didn't seem weirded out about the fact that he adopted a child and loved a woman like he was his truly husband. It's interesting, bc what happened to the sacred oath there? Maybe he actually didn't have that kind of relationship whit her but loved her like Cas loves Dean, without kissing her or having sex with her but only... loving her? It's kind of sweet**

[bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/158943334743/do-you-ever-remember-that-angel-who-gadreel-killed):

> Actually this is a good example of another Angel/Human relationship much like Lily and Akobel’s.
> 
> [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) made a good point that one of the reasons sex with humans was a forbidden act punishable by death is because of the vessel consent issue. It makes sense that the angels would frown upon what would basically be rape in any situation unless the vessel explicitly gave the angel consent to have sex with another human whilst possessing them.
> 
> Its probably the strongest reason for the sacred oath and makes a good explanation for why we have now seen THREE relationships between angels and humans that are implied to be romantic but not sexual.
> 
> The first was Emmanuel and Daphne. We got canon confirmation in season 9 that Cas never had sex with Daphne the whole year they were together as husband and wife.
> 
> The second was Abner and his vessels wife, which, whilst we don’t know if they had a sexual relationship, its a good theory, especially since he describes his vessel as an “abusive ass” and there is every possibility that his wife, after dealing with that, wouldn’t welcome sexual advances anyway, meaning Abner wouldn’t have broken his oath.
> 
> The third was Lily and Akobel. It was strongly implied that they were not sexual, even if there relationship did appear to be romantic. Akobel was Lily’s protector mainly, though it was still framed as a romantic relationship.
> 
> Gadreel’s reaction to Abner’s situation actually can also be argued as Gadreel not really being aware of the Sacred Oath himself, since he was in heavens prison ever since the Garden of Eden, so he is another angel that probably wouldn’t care much for heavens rules. He did think that Abner’s situation was strange and that he was “much changed” so there was certainly some confusion as to why he would make such a choice, but I really doubt that any of heavens strict rules about sleeping with humans would have come to mind at the time. Having said that, you can also argue that he did consider this when he asked about the vessel anyway. “And your vessel? Is he happy?” can be interpreted as “what about our sacred oath? have you forgotten your vessels soul and consent?” So there are certain ways to look at it.
> 
> Honestly nonny, I have yet to find any moment in canon that is solid evidence AGAINST the sacred oath being a legitimate thing. I can argue for it in every situation. I am 100% behind this theory.

 

I’ve often wondered about Abner’s vessel. I mean we KNOW he was an abusive ass, but he also did say yes to being possessed by an angel. I wonder what his reasons for that were?

And I wonder if he was still in there with Abner, since Abner referred to him in the past tense. Since it’s never really discussed, and Gadreel kills Abner (and his vessel) just one scene later, I guess we’ll never know.

But I also wonder what his wife thought of this dramatic change in her previously abusive husband. Did Abner ever tell her the truth about who he was and how he’d possessed her husband?

He’d been living with them for what, three or four months at the most by the time Gadreel found him?

I can’t help thinking back to 9.01 and all the angels suddenly seeming to “activate” in response to Dean’s prayer (the businessman angel who walked out of breakfast with his “family”, the tractor angel, Gadreel’s original vessel, etc.). Like they’d been doing their best to blend in until they heard that prayer.

And also the angels in s10 who’d wanted to stay on Earth and experience human things for themselves (Adina and Daniel in 10.01, for example). And even Hannah indulging in “human feelings” such as taking a shower and *gasp* feeling curious about human sexuality. Hannah stripped down in front of Cas in order to take a shower, but Cas reacted by averting his eyes. And she gets that in 10.07:

**Hannah** : I’m sorry Castiel, I’m not going with you. I’m done. It’s hard letting go – the story, the mission. What of the humans, whose lives we sacrifice in the name of that mission, what of them?  **We always said the humans were our original mission; maybe it’s time Castiel, time to put them first**.  
 **Castiel:**  Where is all this coming from?  
 **Hannah:**  Being on Earth, working with you. I felt things, human things – passions, hungers. To shower, feel water on my skin, to get closer to you. But all of that was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw him. Her husband, his anger and his grief.  **Caroline was inside me screaming out for him, for her life back.** These feelings they aren’t for me, for us. They belong to her. I know it’s time to step aside… Goodbye Castiel. 

Hannah recognized this on her own, but what of an angel who wasn’t willing to let those feelings go? And was willing to disregard their vessel’s feelings? We know not all angels allow their vessels to witness everything that happens while they’re possessed (not even Castiel let Jimmy see or remember a lot– chained to a comet and all that), but Hannah  _did,_ probably because she WAS fascinated by those human passions and hungers, and was curious to learn about them from Caroline.

But from what we’ve seen, she was definitely in the minority. 

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [angels and vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-vessels) [Hannah](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Hannah) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)

 

[Mar 29, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158970362805/213-father-is-that-michael-sam-points-vaguely)

30 notes

2.13: Father, is that Michael? (Sam points vaguely in Dean’s direction)

aka: It’s not an angel but holy crap that’s uncanny… and what is “God’s Will?”

**TELEVANGELIST** : You don’t have to suffer, you don’t have to be lost. The lord is talking to you right now; he’s saying, you are my child and you have a purpose! You think God forgot about you? I tell you no! All you got to do is listen! Can’t you just hear those angels singing? Isn’t it beautiful? It’s time. It’s time to receive the message he’s sending. It’s time to listen to the Word of God! Do you hear the glory? I said, can you hear it? I said, can you just hear the glory?

So we start out with Dean having lost his identity, and his ability to hunt effectively, because of the lie Sam told in 2.12. He’s bored and grumpy, obviously. (Magic fingers to the rescue?)

GOOD VS EVIL, and what is “good” and what is “evil.”

Sam, struggling with the fear that he himself is going to “turn evil” under the influence of the demon, is so desperate to believe in something good here. God, angels… anything that might be able to redeem him from what he fears is his destiny.

Dean, meanwhile, fights him every step of the way on the existence of angels, or even God. We learn that Sam has always prayed, while angels are one of the few creatures Dean’s always had on his “bullshit list.”

**SAM** : And you’ve got angels on the bullcrap list.  
 **DEAN** : Yep.  
 **SAM** : Why?  
 **DEAN** : Because I’ve never seen one.  
 **SAM** : So what?  
 **DEAN** : So I believe in what I can see.  
SAM: Dean! You and I have seen things that most people couldn’t even dream about.  
 **DEAN** : Exactly. With our own eyes. That’s hard proof, okay? But in all this time I have never seen anything that looks like an angel. And don’t you think that if they existed that we would have crossed paths with them? Or at least know someone that crossed paths with them? No. This is a, a demon or a spirit. You know, they find people a few fries short of a happy meal, and they trick them into killing these randoms.

Belief is a powerful thing, though. These people truly BELIEVED they’d been given instructions by an angel. And Dean keeps insisting it’s not an angel, while Sam tries desperately to believe.

(and Dean’s right, it’s not an angel it’s just the spirit of a priest who’d been murdered… but Sam’s also right that there might be some greater force in the universe…)

**SAM** : You know, we’re just happy to be here now, Father.  
 **FR**.  **REYNOLDS** : And we’re happy to have you, we could use some young blood around here. 

(oh gosh it’s a bloodline going back to Cain and Abel, culminating in Sam and Dean Winchester, the youngest of that bloodline… >.>)

**FR. REYNOLDS** : That’s right. The archangel Michael, with the flaming sword. The fighter of demons. Holy force against evil.  
 **SAM** : So they’re not really the Hallmark card version that everybody thinks? They’re fierce, right? Vigilant?  
 **FR. REYNOLDS** : Well, I like to think of them as more loving than wrathful. But, uh, yes, a lot of Scripture paints angels as God’s warriors. “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, the glory of the Lord shone down upon them, and they were terrified.”

(it’s like the apocalypse encapsulated into its simplest notion right here in three lines)

They learn that Father Gregory had been murdered on the church steps two months ago, and Dean immediately latches on to Gregory as a potential vengeful spirit who could be responsible for these deaths. He would have the “insider information” on the victims from hearing their confessions. But Sam is still stuck on this notion that God could be intervening, because Father Reynolds started praying for God’s help right around that same time.

He just needs so desperately to believe in something greater, to feel like he’s not fighting this battle against “the evil inside himself” all alone. *spends five minutes crying for Sam*

Because he wants so badly to believe, Sam believes he has seen an angel while they were investigating Gregory’s grave. And what the “angel” told Sam when he asked what this person he’s supposed to kill has done wrong:

**SAM** : Actually I did, Dean. And the angel told me. He hasn’t done anything. Yet. But he will.

(sort of like Sam hasn’t done anything wrong yet, he hasn’t gone “darkside”)

**SAM** : Dean, the angel hasn’t been wrong yet! Someone’s going to do something awful, and I can stop it!  
 **DEAN:** You know, you’re supposed to be bad too, maybe, maybe I should just stop you right now.

(and there it is, Sam’s biggest fear. Dean’s, too.)

**SAM** : Yes! Maybe we’re hunting an angel here, and we should stop! Maybe this is God’s will!  
 **DEAN** : Okay, all right. You know what? I get it. You’ve got faith. That’s — hey, good for you. I’m sure it makes things easier. I’ll tell you who else had faith like that — Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me.  
 **SAM** : You never told me that.  
 **DEAN** : Well, what’s to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her. There’s no higher power, there’s no God. I mean, there’s just chaos, and violence, and random unpredictable evil th-that comes out of nowhere, and rips you to shreds. You want me to believe in this stuff? I’m going to need to see some hard proof. You got any? Well, I do. Proof that we’re dealing with a spirit.

And there’s the rub. Mary was the one who had faith, but she died. Her faith wasn’t enough to save her from evil. Sam was willing to just let this one go, but Dean wants concrete proof. “That’s one of the perks of the job, Sam: we don’t have to operate on faith. We can know for sure. Don’t you wanna know for sure?”

So when Sam sees the “sign,” the person he’s supposed to stop, DEAN goes after the “evil” guy while Sam goes back to the church to summon Gregory’s spirit. Because Dean’s not operating under Sam’s “compulsion.” He can follow the evil guy without being forced to kill him against his will, like Sam may have been vulnerable to doing while he believed he was acting on some sort of Divine Orders.

Poor Sam has to try and explain to Father Reynolds why he’s performing a seance in the crypt. The stage directions here explain it perfectly:

As FR. REYNOLDS pulls SAM to the exit, a familiar bright glow builds behind them. They turn, FR. REYNOLDS in awe, SAM in disappointment.  
 **FR. REYNOLDS** : Oh my god! Is that … is that an angel?  
 **SAM** : No, it’s not. It’s just Father Gregory.

Sam’s disappointed, because Dean was right. It’s not an angel. It was the spirit of Gregory all along.

**SAM** : Father, I’m sorry. But you’re not an angel.  
 **FR. GREGORY** : Of course I am.  
 **SAM** : No. You’re a man. You’re a spirit. And you need to rest.  
 **FR. GREGORY** : I was a man. But now I’m an angel. I was on the steps of the church. And I felt that bullet pierce right through me. But there was no pain. And suddenly I could see …everything. Father Reynolds, I saw you, praying and crying here. I came to help you.

He truly believed he was an angel, and was acting to answer prayers. He’d created a similar sort of metaphysical mathematics that Sam had been trying to make for himself, balancing out the “evil” inside himself by saving as many people as he possibly could. (which I mentioned in my 2.11 post)

Gregory truly did believe he was helping people, and doing it on God’s orders. And heck, maybe he was.

FR. REYNOLDS: How can you call this redemption?  
FR. GREGORY: You can’t understand it now. But the rules of man and the rules of God are two very different things.  
SAM: Those people. They’re locked up.  
FR. GREGORY: No,  **they’re happy. They’ve found peace, beaten their demons**.  **And I’ve given them the keys to Heaven.**

(this strikes me as similar to the sort of “happiness” Sam thought Dean was experiencing in 12.11. Peace IS NOT happiness. Like t[his post postulates](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158857014685/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-when-i-saw-this), heaven is about peace, not freedom. It’s not about “happiness,” which comes from free will– at least in Dean’s mind it does. What these people experienced was the utter LOSS of their free will. Their “burdens” were taken from them and they’re just left to exist, just like the sort of memories that are conjured in Heaven. NOT happiness, but peace, at any cost.)

**FR. REYNOLDS** : No. No, this is vengeance, it’s wrong. Thomas, this goes against everything you believed. You’re lost, misguided.  
 **FR. GREGORY** : Father. No, I’m not misguided.  
 **FR. REYNOLDS** : You are not an angel, Thomas. Men cannot be angels.  
 **FR. GREGORY** : But … but I, I don’t understand. You prayed for me to come.  
 **FR. REYNOLDS** : I prayed for God’s help. Not this. What you’re doing is not God’s will. “Thou shalt not kill”. That’s the word of God.

Yeah, God says a lot of stuff that contradicts the other stuff >.>

While all this is going on, while Sam’s faith is breaking, Dean witnesses something he has no words for. He stops the man Sam had been given the sign to kill, about to rape a woman. The ensuing car chase ends in one of the most awesome things I have ever seen on this show. I totally get why Dean thought it might be an act of God’s will…

And then in 11.20 Chuck’s autobiography included chapters that pretty much explain this situation:

Chapter Ten – Why I Never Answer Prayers, and You Should Be Glad I Don’t

Chapter Eleven – The Truth About Divine Intervention and Why I Avoid It At All Costs.

In s12, there’s still this element of doing things for the “greater good.” Preemptively killing people for their hidden “evil” intentions– even if there’s pretty good evidence that they are actually going to carry out those evil intentions– is a level of enacting “justice” that’s treading way too close to hubris.

Gregory used humans as weapons to target other humans, predicated on the belief that they were doing God’s will– even extending to the murder of people who hadn’t yet even committed any crime.

Well, this is exactly like the BMoL killing all the monsters, whether or not they’d committed any crime. And yet again, Sam wants so desperately to believe in the righteousness of that mission, just for very different reasons this time around. He’s long since come to terms with whatever “evil” he believed he’d been tainted with, but now it’s finally about Mary, and in a strange, twisted way, restoring her “faith” that Sam lost long ago, finding redemption, finding peace.

Even if the premise that peace rests on is a misguided delusion like Father Gregory’s was.

[spn 2.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.13) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [spn s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [the story became the story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-story-became-the-story) [hubris is bad](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hubris-is-bad) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch)

 

[Apr 2, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159126141235/tinkdw-floralmotif-godshipsit-i-really)

93 notes

[tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/159119706877/floralmotif-godshipsit-i-really-wonder-what):

> [floralmotif](https://floralmotif.tumblr.com/post/158925503747/godshipsit-i-really-wonder-what-benjamin-thought):
>
>> [godshipsit](https://godshipsit.tumblr.com/post/158924905654/i-really-wonder-what-benjamin-thought-of-castiel):
>>
>>> I really wonder what Benjamin thought of Castiel, if he would have been more comprehensive of Cas’ relationship with humanity, since he seemed to have a strong bond with his human vessel (with serious implications that they were more than just… friends).
>> 
>> This is an interesting thought. Lily could have killed any of the angels from the garrison. They could have created the set to have any characterization.
>> 
>> The fact that we didn’t get to see Cas with Benjamin or another angel like him may be indicative of how the show wants the audience to interpret the angels at this time. They seem to want to enforce that they are generally un-supportive. Showing Cas with Benjamin may have prompted a more sympathetic portrayal and without an angel killing Benjamin or them being out of character, it may have run counter to the writer’s plans and over-complicated the situation.
>> 
>> I really think they don’t want us to like the angels. It may indicate that the writers in fact don’t want Cas to stay with them and want to justify that action from him with the audience. They may not want it to be a question with the audience. That really seems where it’s going and it really makes me wonder what will happen to Cas in heaven. It’s heavily implied that Kelvin is not a friend but that Cas will get all of his powers back. 
>> 
>> I won’t be surprised if Joshua is actually a friend as a sort of counter to the rest of the angels. Having the leader of the angels be a friend makes Cas’ choice an actual choice without over complicating the outcome with the audience. 
>> 
>> We’ll see though, of course. I kind of want Kelvin to at least be friend-like enough that Cas isn’t completely abandoned by the general angels. He may still have the “greater good” thought process though, that the other angels have. This may prompt Cas’ choice more than anything since he’d no longer even relate to the angels that were kind to him. I’d like it if he had some support from his family though. Giving him some sort of resolution on that end would be nice rather than completely turning him around. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was their goal though.
>> 
>> Or maybe, it’ll make it even harder. It’s hard to say right now. But I do wish we got more time with Benjamin. He seemed really interesting.
> 
> I don’t know - I feel like they want us to really code the Angels like a family where some are on each side of the fence.
> 
> We’ve seen some really top notch dick Angels (Zachariah) and some middling ones who are just angry with what’s happened but aren’t inherently dicks (Hester) and some ‘good’ Angels (Inias, Hannah, Benjamin).
> 
> So I find it really intriguing to see where they’re going with it… it feels to me more like there’s a potential rebellion/overtaking of the ‘good’ Angels on the cards than saying that all Angels are bad… but that’s just me :)

I don’t know about that. I mean, of your three examples of “good” angels, I’m inclined to file Inias under “grey area that showed up once in 7.21 and has never been heard from again.” Yeah, he made a plea for mercy for Cas, but under the “we’ve lost so many already, let’s not kill another one of us” umbrella, and not explicitly for Cas’s personal sake. If he shows up again in obvious support of Cas  _specifically_ , then yeah, I’d buy he’s coded “good” instead of just “neutral.”

As for Hannah, yeah we saw her learn some lessons, but one of her last acts was her involvement in Cas’s interrogation in 11.02. Yeah, it’s sort of understood that she was manipulated into that role, that she was trying to help him, but the condition for her being able to help him was for him to turn over the Winchesters and comply with Heaven’s orders. As much as she learned about humanity, she never really got the Big Lesson. And she unfortunately was killed before she had a chance to learn it.

And Benjamin, yeah, he absolutely got it. He loved his vessel, and would do pretty much anything to protect her. Including living quietly on Earth and essentially cutting all ties with Heaven. So… I think that says a lot about his opinion of most of the other angels, and what they would think about his relationship with his human vessel… (and honestly it doesn’t really cast Heaven and the rest of the angels in a positive light).

Even Joshua was coded as truly neutral, being nothing more than the gardener (caring for what Chuck deluded himself into believing was his best creation– nature– until Metatron finally made him accept the fact that  _humanity_  was in fact his greatest creation… nature was simply his least problematic creation, where he could  _avoid having to deal with the problems he’d created_.) Sure God talked to Joshua, but it was a one-way conversation.

We haven’t heard from Joshua since that one episode until Kelvin mentions him  _seven years later_. When heaven was in turmoil after the apocalypse, he did nothing. When the angels fell, we have no idea where he was on Earth (probably at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, tbh…), but he never chose a side, as far as we know. We also learn in 12.15 that he’d apparently been offered a leadership position in the past but had “stepped aside” to continue gardening (presumably), and only the nephilim was a big enough deal to draw him out again? Not even the Darkness was apparently a large enough threat to inspire him to leave his garden (then again God himself may have told him not to all these years? Who knows.)

But really, I assume that Joshua is probably the only angel who’s truly loyal to Chuck, if for no other reason than he’d never felt truly  _abandoned_  by him the way the rest of the angels did. He was content to continue on as he’d always done, knowing that God was still talking to him and that everything was exactly as it should be.

So unless Chuck’s still whispering into his ear and telling him to keep doing the RIGHT thing, then I think we really don’t have any idea what Joshua’s intentions here might be yet.

Yes he seemed very nice and very reasonable, but he was perfectly willing to pass on God’s message to Sam and Dean and then send them back to Earth to submit to their assigned roles in the Apocalypse.

Not exactly a heartening stance for good, here…

Last but not least,[ when Kripke introduced the concept of angels to the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158942200305/in-the-first-three-seasons-kripke-had-a-staunch) it was under this one condition:

“Okay guys, angels… but they’re dicks.”

The only angel who’s truly defied this and achieved a sort of “humanity” and free will… is Castiel. And we’ve seen what it’s truly taken him to get here.

spn 12.15, spn 5.16

 

[Apr 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159343161335/do-we-know-for-sure-theres-a-difference-between)

35 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do we know for sure there's a difference between archangel and regular angel blades? Or is that just conjecture? I always thought angels could be killed by any angel blade. I wish they would go into more detail on that. I once read a fic where angel blades were made from an angel's Grace, which I think is an interesting headcanon.**

Well, the main reasons it’s believed that regular old angel blades can’t kill the archangels is based on several episodes, starting with 5.10.

If an angel blade could kill Lucifer, then why the heck were they trying so hard to find The Colt? Cas already HAD an angel blade. Yet… they go through all that trouble to track down Crowley to get the Colt from him? Because at the time they believed it might be effective against Lucifer (they didn’t know about the five things it couldn’t kill until Lucifer told them).

Yet Cas didn’t even attempt to kill him with his own angel blade.

Then we had 5.19, where Kali specifically referred to Gabriel’s sword as “an archangel’s sword,” and Gabriel said that it could kill him. (and Lucifer proved that when he stabbed Gabriel with his own sword).

There’s nothing, as far as I know, in canon that says specifically that an archangel’s sword is anything different than a regular angel’s sword aside from the fact that  _everyone behaves as if regular angel blades are not effective against archangels_.

Then in 10.20 we see a very different type of angel blade– the Grigori’s sword. It’s similar, but not identical to an angel blade. Could this weapon possibly have different powers than the standard angel blade? Because Claire still has that sword, which she’d used to kill the Grigori.

The only difference we seem to know about that Grigori sword is that Cas was unable to heal the wounds it had caused. Whether that was due to the weapon that had inflicted the wounds, or some nature of the wounds themselves having been inflicted specifically to cut away at the victim’s soul, we have no idea.

Then in 12.02, we know Crowley has angel blades lying around all over the place. Yet when he had Rowena summon Lucifer and they had him pinned like a bug…  _he threw sulfuric acid at Lucifer to destroy his vessel enough for Rowena to banish him back to the Cage_. Crowley REALLY DID want to put Lucifer back at that point. Or kill him. Either way. He wanted Lucifer gone. Lucifer is a threat to everything Crowley is.

Rowena had him immobilized with her spell for long enough to have run him through with an angel blade, IF HE’D HAD ANY BELIEF THAT DOING SO WOULD ACTUALLY HURT LUCIFER.

So yeah, it’s not explicit canon. Nobody’s ever said “Angel blades are different from Archangel blades,” but the subtext practically screams the fact at us.

Either archangels are not vulnerable to regular angel swords, or loads of characters have gone to all sorts of trouble to take care of things that would otherwise have been… entirely unnecessary.

So I really HOPE that archangels aren’t vulnerable to regular old angel blades, otherwise pretty much the entire cast has been doing the equivalent of running around looking for their glasses while their glasses have been sitting atop their heads  _for eight freaking years_. And because I really don’t believe all of them are that idiotic, I’m gonna stick with that headcanon.

[spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17) [spn 10.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.20) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [spn 5.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.19) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	39. Chapter 39

[May 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161178188400/if-crowley-could-build-an-all-purpose-vessel-for)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: If Crowley could build an all purpose vessel for an archangel, why couldn't the angels do that back in season 5 and avoid the whole "we NEED Sam and Dean to be vessels" mess**

Eh… Zachariah did sorta imply they’d just keep resurrecting Sam and Dean over and over again until they said yes…

But I think the situation with Lucifer in Nick’s vessel is a little bit different to begin with. The assumption having always been that when Sam said yes to Lucifer and he left Nick’s body, Nick didn’t survive. He’d ended his life as a spent vessel who never rescinded his consent for Lucifer to possess him.

Like Raphael’s vessel in 5.03 who’d been left as the catatonic husk of a person that Raphael didn’t need a second “yes” from in order to possess him again, I think the same thing applies to Lucifer and Nick.

Being the ever practical and resourceful demon that Crowley was, it’s sort of implied that he’s either kept Nick’s meatsuit on ice ever since Lucifer traded up to his Sam Suit or that he hunted it down when Luci got loose in s11.

That’s a long time he’s had to tinker with the magical spells to restore Nick’s vessel and do whatever he did to trap Lucifer inside it, working a similar sort of magic to what made the original Cage in Hell into the prison it was. Nick’s vessel wasn’t constructed from the ground up, you know? It started with Nick’s consenting body… though I doubt he’d consent to THIS being done with it now…

I don’t think Michael or Lucifer would’ve WANTED that sort of flesh prison for themselves. 

And that WAS the entire plot of s5. DESTINY and PROPHECY stated that in order for the apocalypse to go on, Michael and Lucifer had to take these specific vessels and carry out these specific steps… Angels do love to follow orders and obey prophecy.

Well, most of them do, anyway.

 

 

[Jun 2, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161374634530/i-think-its-horrifically-sad-that-people-genuinly)

146 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think it's horrifically sad that people genuinly believe that the only thing that has ever mattered for Cas is Dean. However the situation is now, heaven and the other angels were Castiel's FAMILY for millions of years. Just imagine the trauma and feelings of lonliness for a creature that old to not have a friend that shares his history, to speak of things that humans will just not GET. The writers have reduced Cas' entire world into just the Winchesters, and how is that a good thing?**

[tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/161364852872/i-think-its-horrifically-sad-that-people-genuinly):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161363238535/i-think-its-horrifically-sad-that-people-genuinly):
>
>> I… don’t see any of this?
>> 
>> I don’t know of anything in canon that indicates that  “the only thing that has ever mattered for Cas is Dean.”
>> 
>> In fact, I’d dare say the exact opposite is true. Cas has always cared about humanity in general. He’s always had “too much heart.” (So said Samandriel) He’s always resisted obeying Heaven’s orders. (So said Naomi, and Hester, and… pretty much every angel who’s ever known him…)
>> 
>> Yes, those other angels, who were his FAMILY for millions of years, who reprogrammed him over and over again every time he showed that “too much heart.” Every time he tried to show the rest of them something greater than just following those orders, from trying to enforce some kind of “destiny.”
>> 
>> We get his disillusionment in full technicolor even as far back as 6.20– his sense of guilt, his sense of obligation to wrangle all the angels around to seeing the potential they’re missing out on.
>> 
>> **CASTIEL** No. No one leads us anymore. We’re all free to make our own choices and to choose our own fates.  
>  **RACHEL** What does God want?  
>  **CASTIEL** God wants you to have freedom.  
>  **RACHEL** But what does he want us to do with it?
>> 
>> It must be the crack in his chassis, because he seems to be the only angel who really, truly understands this. He desperately wants the angels to just  _understand_  this, and they just… don’t. He despairs of them, yet still feels personally responsible for saving them from what Raphael plans to do. Maybe, just maybe, if he stops Raphael from restarting the apocalypse, then MAYBE the rest of the angels might learn to exercise the freedom (and free will) that he’s been trying to show them all along.
>> 
>> God doesn’t want them to do anything, he wants them to decide what to do for themselves.
>> 
>> And Cas is pretty much the only angel who really gets it.
>> 
>> And Sam and Dean (and especially Dean) has been there to help him through his disappointment, frustration, and disillusionment in dealing with Heaven, going all the way back to s4. We see it continue throughout s5 when Dean helps Cas after God essentially abandons all of creation, refusing to do anything about the apocalypse.
>> 
>> Cas was the ONLY angel willing to defy Heaven, Hell, Destiny, and GOD to save humanity. And he didn’t do it grudgingly. He CHOSE it, because it felt like the right thing for him to do. And then he immediately was thrown back into an impossible situation where he was being asked to do it all AGAIN.
>> 
>> And HE STILL CHOSE TO DEFEND HUMANITY, even against all of Heaven, on his own. Not because he was eager to save Heaven… but so that he could protect Dean.
>> 
>> I mean, that was his CHOICE.
>> 
>> I don’t think the writers are saying AT ALL that Cas feels bereft of a friend who truly understands him, or truly sympathizes with him, or that Cas laments the loss of the “family” that has done nothing but reject him and dismiss him and use him and abuse him for most of that very long life.
>> 
>> For a very long time he did feel guilty and a sense of obligation to help them, but that’s worn really thin over the last few years. There’s only so many times someone can be blatantly and forcefully rejected by one’s “family” before one gives that family the ol’ heave ho.
>> 
>> I don’t think the writers are trying to tell a story in which Cas is rejecting a loving and supportive family. We’ve been witnessing his trauma and feelings of loneliness for a long time. Heck, so much of his s10 arc (which still feels shunted off to the side toward the end of the season as the Darkness arc was being set up), and DEFINITELY his s11 arc were DIRECTLY ABOUT Cas’s sense of loneliness and abandonment and disconnect from his Heavenly family.
>> 
>> It was driven home with iron spikes in 11.02:
>> 
>> **CASTIEL** : Mercy, brother, please!  
>  **EFRAM** : Brother? Ha! What are you?  
>  **CASTIEL** : W-what? I’m an angel of the Lord.  
>  **EFRAM** : That so? ‘Cause, near as I can tell, when you have to choose between heaven and the Winchesters …  
>  **JONAH** : You choose them.  
>  **EFRAM** : Every time. So, see, you’re not my brother. And if I had it my way, I’d take this blade, stick it in your heart … and call that a damn good day.
>> 
>> And if that wasn’t enough:
>> 
>> **HANNAH** : I saved you.  
>  **CASTIEL** : No. I don’t think you did. I think that you told Efram and Jonah to bring me here and to hurt me, and so you arranged to – to … to burst in and save me. You were hoping that I would be so grateful that I would do anything you said, that I would tell you anything that you wanted to know. Why, Hannah? We were friends.  
>  **HANNAH** : That was before you freed Metatron … Before … The other angels, they hate you.  
>  **CASTIEL** : And what about you? Do you hate me?  
>  **EFRAM** : (both Efram and Jonah enter the room again) It doesn’t matter. We took a vote – democracy in action – and … Hannah’s doing the job.  
>  **CASTIEL** : I won’t give you Sam and Dean.  
>  **EFRAM** : Sure you will.  
>  **JONAH** : We’re gonna hack your brain.
>> 
>> This is that “family” you mentioned. This is the “family” that Cas has tried to protect Sam and Dean from since s4. He won’t just hand over Sam and Dean to them to be tortured and killed. Because that’s what they intended to do with Cas, so how much worse would it be for Sam and Dean?
>> 
>> It’s not like the angels have been working hard to support and accept and understand Cas. It doesn’t do a lot for his sense of guilt or loyalty to Heaven…
>> 
>> Then in 11.10:
>> 
>> **Ambriel** : Are you going to kill me?  
>  **Castiel** : Is that what they say, that I kill angels?  
>  **Ambriel** : Well, that’s the nicest thing they say. Well, maybe we can work together… so no-one murders anyone.
>> 
>> and
>> 
>> **Castiel** : I never wanted this, you know. To be hated by my own kind, I never-  
>  **Ambriel** : Oh no, I don’t hate you, Castiel.  
>  **Castiel** : Thank you.  
>  **Ambriel** : I mean, we have a lot in common. Our names rhyme, that’s a big one. I look good in a trench coat too, and we’re both expendable.  
>  **Castiel** : Excuse me?  
>  **Ambriel** : Well, that’s why we’re here, right? I’m a number cruncher and you-you like I said, I’ve heard the stories. You help. But Sam and Dean Winchester are the real heroes. So if the Darkness is still alive and she’s pissed and she kills us, no big loss. So sure, maybe we’re not super important, but we do the job. I think there’s nobility in that.
>> 
>> and if that’s not enough, Amara rubs it in…
>> 
>> **Amara** : She’s right you know, you are expendable and weak. And why God took a special interest in you, I’ll never understand. My brother always did have horrible taste in men. 
>> 
>> Cas’s Netflix binge in early s11, hiding out in the bunker at a time when that was the ONLY place he could turn. Heaven had fully rejected him. That family would rather he was DEAD than accept him back.
>> 
>> While I can understand why someone might feel hopeful that Cas had at least some part of his Heavenly family that he remained close with, like immigrants to a new country who feel culturally adrift but for the support of one’s family… but that’s not been Cas’s experience at all.
> 
> I hope you don’t mind me adding to this as we often do, if you do, let me know I’ll blog separately :)
> 
> I love all this and it is all very true however my final conclusion is not quite the same.
> 
> “God doesn’t want them to do anything, he wants them to decide what to do for themselves. And Cas is pretty much the only angel who really gets it.”
> 
> For me Cas is not the only one, we had Samandriel, we had Hannah who TRIED to do her best, released her vessel as she felt guilty for taking away her free will, only did what she did to Cas in the end as she felt backed into a corner and was trying to work for the greater good as Cas nearly always does himself (how is this any worse than Cas manipulating then killing the other Angel to take his grace or breaking Sam’s wall for the greater good).
> 
> The first Angel we ever met literally chose to rip out her own grace in a bid to obtain Free Will and her own agency. Gabriel was the epitome of Free Will and agency in an Angel and Balthazar gave it a good go. Gadreel ultimately did the right thing, by choice.
> 
> We also have the two fishing Angels who literally DID decide what to do for themselves and were the perfect example of this, just wanting to be left alone and choosing their own agency.
> 
> So although I do agree with all your points about Cas x family specifically and the Angels, I dont put ALL the Angels in the same box.
> 
> In fact I think a huge part of the show is showing precisely that you cannot generalise like this, that each person makes their own choices and decisions and isn’t held to a wider stereotype or path that is foretold or shown as one that they can’t stray from if they choose to.
> 
> So I hope that in the end Cas specifically does choose to leave the Angels as a whole but not in an all together negative way and that the Angels are shown as not all being the same, perhaps he has a good relationship with one or two Angels by the end, to show precisely that they’re NOT all the same. Though he has rejected the overall group of them due to his experience and own choices, it doesn’t mean they’re all the same and all in the same box of being Dick Angels, because that for me would be a shame for the show’s overall themes of self governance and agency…

Hrm.., I almost did take you up on your offer to delete this reply and post it separately, because it rather distracts from the point I was trying to make specifically about Cas. But you are right… up to a point. Because I think most of the angels you used as examples here only serve to prove my point that Cas is truly different from the vast majority of them.

Let’s go over this list:

**Samandriel** : We actually know very little about him. We know from 8.02 that he liked and admired Cas. He was the one, after all, who believed that Cas had “too much heart.”  Which he considered a “problem.” Not that he felt negatively about Cas caring so much, but that it was literally his downfall and the reason he died (because at that time Dean made it sound like Cas HAD died in Purgatory). Yet at the auction Samandriel was unwilling (or unable) to protect Kevin Tran.

**Hannah** : I have very complicated feelings about Hannah. You said at the end (in 11.02) she felt “backed into a corner” and thought she was acting for the greater good. All Cas wanted was to be healed of the spell that was slowly killing him. He’d been perfectly willing to go back to Heaven and accept their punishment for his part in releasing the Darkness. He even had a long discussion with Hannah about the fact that it was released. She admits that she can’t heal him because it’s powerful magic, but then begins demanding answers from him. When he tells her he doesn’t know where Sam and Dean are (which is the truth), she raises her voice at him. And that’s when he begins suspecting that s _he had arranged the entire torture session herself._  She’d set herself up to barge in playing “good cop” and get the answers out of Cas,  _because he trusted her_. Honestly the fastest way to gain Cas’s cooperation,  _if that had been what she truly wanted_ , would’ve been to heal him and then recruit him to help Heaven fight the darkness. Because  _that was his intention in praying for help in the first place_. Heaven didn’t want the Winchesters to get their HELP.

I’m not saying this is better or worse than anything Cas has done. He did slaughter a lot of angels back in 7.01 just to “punish” them for not siding with him against Raphael. He was not exactly himself at the time… He also did a lot of shady crap during s6, but all of it spiraled out of control from his initial decision to stand up to Raphael and do everything in his power to keep the Winchesters out of the entire mess. Things… rapidly went sideways and continued to go more and more sideways as events unfolded… But at the end, Cas did believe that Hannah had tried to use him to get to the Winchesters– not because she thought they could help defeat the Darkness, but because they needed to be punished. Just like Hannah wanted Cas to punish Dean waaaay back in s9. And even then, Cas tried to do what he could to save her, even at that moment he felt personally betrayed by her.

**Anna** : I’ll give you Anna. She obviously didn’t choose to rip out her grace lightly. She truly did want to experience humanity for herself, and in the end she took her grace back as an act of self-sacrifice on behalf of humans. So. Yeah. Cas wasn’t completely unique in that regard. He is unique in that Naomi’s reprogramming didn’t stick, like it did with Anna…

**Gabriel** : I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that he was the epitome of free will and agency in an angel. Yeah, he did run away from Heaven. He didn’t want any part in the fighting. He just wanted it to be over. He enjoyed himself immensely fucking around on Earth, messing with humans in frankly disturbing ways. I mean, just look what he did to Sam. And he claimed to LIKE Sam. If that’s how you treat your friends… Well, yeah, he exercised a lot of free will, choosing to spent most of his existence pretending to be something he wasn’t just to avoid dealing with what he actually was. He saw humanity as an interesting distraction for the most part, until Dean called him out on it. 

**LUCIFER** : So you’re willing to die, for a pile of cockroaches. Why?  
 **GABRIEL** : Because Dad was right. They are better than us.  
 **LUCIFER** : They are broken. Flawed! Abortions.  
 **GABRIEL** : Damn right they’re flawed. But a lot of them try. To do better, to forgive. And you should see the Spearmint Rhino! I’ve been riding the pine a long time. But I’m in the game now, and I’m not on your side, or Michael’s. I’m on theirs.

It took him right to the end of that episode to stand up and pick a side. And yeah, in the end he did pick Humanity. So I’ll give him points for trying.

**Gadreel** : I’ll give you Gadreel. He had his own personal issues that were very different from Cas’s, but he was easily deceived into trusting the wrong people… and ended up paying for it with his life.

**The Fishing Angels, Adina and Daniel** : I’ll give you them, as well. They were keen to understand humanity and free will for themselves. Who knows if their vessels appreciated it, but heck, they were trying. And they just wanted to be left alone and not dragged back to heaven for disobeying orders and killing the first angel sent to retrieve them. It was agonizing watching poor Cas trying to mediate this conversation when Hannah refused to bend from her orders:

**DANIEL** : I can assure you…Had he just left us alone, no one would’ve been harmed.  
 **HANNAH** : His orders were to not leave you alone. And you killed him.  
 **DANIEL** : And heaven sends two more. What is it about us angels that we can’t seem to get the message?  
 **HANNAH** : Perhaps it is you who has failed to get the message? All of us serve at heaven’s command.  
 **DANIEL** : I suppose. But that was before the fall, wasn’t it?  
 **HANNAH** : You are an angel, once and forever.  
 **DANIEL** : Dropped unwillingly…Unknowingly…Into a strange land, a land that, as it turns out, celebrates the free, the individual. For the first time in thousands of years, I have choices. And with each choice… I begin to discover who I really am.  
 **HANNAH** : This is nonsense.  
 **DANIEL** : Because they don’t teach you this in heaven? Perhaps they should. Then you would understand why it’s worth fighting for.  
 **HANNAH** : He’s taunting us.  
 **CASTIEL** : And then what? We kill him?  
 **HANNAH** : Or he kills us? There are orders.

Daniel sounds shockingly like Cas here, yet even though this is EXACTLY what Cas had been trying to explain to other angels since s6, He tries to mediate, but was doomed to fail:

**DANIEL** : What I’ll never understand is why angels won’t acknowledge the wisdom to be found down here.  
 **HANNAH** : What wisdom is to be gained from humans?  
 **DANIEL** : I’m not speaking to you.  
 **HANNAH** : Do you understand what he’s… Fine. But if you are to be free, that is to be decided by all angels.  
 **DANIEL** : There’s that angelic irony.  
 **ADINA** : We’re not going back there. Not ever.  
 **DANIEL** : Adina. This is Hannah and Castiel. Stow the blade, please.  
 **ADINA** : When she stows hers.  
 **CASTIEL** : Hannah, what are you doing?  
 **ADINA** : We’ll never get a chance to argue our freedom from a prison cell.  
 **HANNAH** : You should’ve thought of that before slaughtering one of your own.  
 **DANIEL** : No, no. We were talking. We were getting somewhere.  
 **CASTIEL** : Okay, everybody just –  
 **HANNAH** : You want to be free? Go ahead. Be free.  
 **CASTIEL** : Hannah. Stop this. No. Daniel. No!

Hannah never intended to just let them go. It was either return to heaven to face punishment (imprisonment, torture, death), or die on the spot. Obviously she began to take a slightly different attitude about what might be learned from humans, but he still never conceded that angels might be able to change this way.

Heck, I think Daniel and Adina were far better examples of what Cas hoped for the angels to be than Hannah ever was.

And I’ll give you one more you didn’t ask for:  **Naomi**. All along she truly did believe that she was working for the greater good, manipulating and reprogramming angels who were “broken” and rejected their orders. Until she learned the truth from Metatron and was willing to listen to Cas and give him a chance to explain his side of things in 8.23. Her last words that we ever hear:

**NAOMI** : Our mission was to protect what God created. I don’t know when we forgot that. I want nothing more than to see you shut the Gates of Hell, but I told you that you could trust me. If Sam completes those trials, he is going to die.  
 **DEAN** : What the hell are you talking about?  
 **NAOMI** : I saw it in Metatron’s head. It was always God’s intention – the ultimate sacrifice. As for you, Castiel, I beg of you, stop this path. Metatron has been neutralized. If you want back in, truly, I will listen.

But it was too late… Cas didn’t believe her. She’d already burned all her bridges by what she’d done to him all along. By the time Cas learned she’d been telling him the truth, it was too late for him, too.

* * *

I do agree with you that whatever angels are left (since as far as I know there are no living Named Angels in the story currently) hopefully some of them are able to make their own choices like Daniel and Adina did in the end. But overall, I just think that the way angels have been portrayed– even to the extent that they’ve been metaphorically likened to computers, with an “operating system” and “programming” that can be manipulated– is that they essentially lack free will. It’s not that they reject free will, it literally was not included in the kit. It’s the one thing that really differentiates angels from humanity.

The show’s themes of self governance and agency have never really applied to the vast majority of angels. Those are, after all, HUMAN things. from 6.20:

**CASTIEL** Raphael…No. The Apocalypse doesn’t have to be fought!  
 **RAPHAEL** Of course it does. It’s God’s will.  
 **CASTIEL** How can you say that?!  
 **RAPHAEL** Because it’s what I want.  
 **CASTIEL** Well, the other angels won’t let you.  
 **RAPHAEL** Are you sure? You know better than anyone, Castiel. They’re soldiers. They weren’t built for freedom. They were built to follow.  
 **CASTIEL** Then I won’t let you.  
 **RAPHAEL** Really? You?

Yes, many angels were willing to follow Castiel after that, but none of them had been willing to lead the revolt… Even Cas had his doubts that he was doing the right thing, right up until the end.

Angels weren’t built for freedom. For the vast majority of them, it’s not even part of their programming. Heck, maybe that’ll change with most of Heaven’s ruling structure in shambles now, but who knows? I don’t think the story has ever really been about the other angels learning the value of free will and what it means to be human for themselves. That’s Cas’s story. I honestly do not care whether one other single angel ever learns what free will is for themselves. I don’t think it’s the story that Supernatural has ever tried to tell us.

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is)

 

[Aug 25, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164599248665/what-do-you-think-of-dean-saying-that-solitary)

40 notes

**Anonymous asked: What do you think of Dean saying that solitary confinement was worse than Hell? I love spn, but the one thing I could never really get over was Dean being in Hell for 40 years. Thats longer than anything he's ever done. I have a hard time believing that a person wouldn't just dissolve into nothing after experiencing that, even Dean. I actually have a headcanon that when Cas rescued Dean, he used part of his Grace to significantly mend Dean's soul, so the impact wasn't nearly so dramatic.**

I’ve actually got a post from back in February titled “[Worse than Hell](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156728955875/worse-than-hell).”

But beyond that, your headcanon here that Cas used part of his grace to mend Dean’s soul is a pretty common theory, especially in fanfic. It’s often used to explain the handprint (see all my handprint meta tags ever, there’s at least three or four of them, or just search my blog for “handprint.” there’s a lot of posts on the subject).

We also know what Hell does to souls. It literally is what turns them into demons. How far along in the process must Dean have been when Cas rescued him? He’d been tortured for 30 years, and become the torturer for 10. That HAD to cause at least a little damage to Dean’s soul, by the rules of Hell. Yet when Cas returned him to his miraculously perfectly healed body (and I’m pretty sure this was the entire point of the scene in the gas station mirror where Dean examines himself, lifts up his shirt, etc., that it took something extremely powerful to restore his physical body, but also his soul that we couldn’t see).

So yes, a person WOULD just dissolve in Hell, but not into “nothing.” Specifically into demons. And as we know about demons, quoting Cas in 10.03 when he was explaining to Sam why Dean would resist being cured, “You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier.” So after a point in Hell, when a soul becomes a demon, it likely gets easier. Hence Dean’s comment to Sam back in s4. Not only did he become the torturer,  _he liked it_. Now that his soul had been restored,  _it upset him that he liked it_. Just like he was “embarrassed” by the things he did during his time as a demon in early s10 once he was cured, you know? Possibly similar to how Sam was horrified upon learning about some of the things he did while soulless after his soul was restored to him.

So the bit about it being Cas’s grace that was the healing factor there is logical (again, see the vast collection of handprint meta on my blog for everything from enraptured squee-flailing over the headcannony sorts of posts, and well-reasoned and logical theories connecting the handprint to the mark left on Aaron Birch’s soul when he sold it to Balthazar in 6.03, to pretty much everything I’ve ever written on angels, souls, the nature of angel grace, etc. I’ve spent five years thinking about this in quite excruciating detail… >.>)

(here have a post where I collected my handprint tags for easy reference: <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157167169475/i-dont-know-if-this-interests-you-but-its>)

So I think Dean does have a full recollection of the horrors of what Hell did to him, probably even compounded by his fresh recollection of his time as a literal demon, you know? I don’t think those memories got a fuzzy sort of glow or were tempered into something softer by Cas healing him of that trauma. Part of the point of him going through all of that was to fulfill the prophecy of the apocalypse and prepare him to say Yes to Michael, after all. It would’ve been pointless if he didn’t understand the suffering of souls in Hell. It was supposed to be part of his motivation to let Michael in to defeat Lucifer.

tl;dr: I think Dean fully understood the comparison he was making there. Being isolated for potentially the rest of his natural life, locked in a small concrete box, with  _no point of any kind to that isolation and suffering_ , was worse than Hell. At least the suffering he endured in Hell had a point. It was a willing sacrifice on his part (as I said in that linked post at the top of this rambling reply). :P

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn s4](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s4) [spn 4.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.11) [spn 4.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.01) [oh the handprint](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-the-handprint) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [probably other tags to be named later >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/probably-other-tags-to-be-named-later-%3E.%3E) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Oct 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166763414915/hi-in-1212-cas-ishim-and-mirabel-had-that)

19 notes

**[ishi-ixi](https://ishi-ixi.tumblr.com/) asked: Hi! In 12.12 Cas, Ishim and Mirabel had that conversation: [Cas: Ishim. Kept your vessels all this time. I'm impressed. Ishim: We are not careless.] They used these vessels while visiting Lily Sunder, so their vessels are more than 100 year old. We know that those accident was an anomaly, many years ago, so they didn't wandering around the Earth prolonging their vessels' lifes. Their vessels couldn't be alive at that moment. And only explanation that we have is "We aren't careless" :( But how?**

Hi there! First of all, that’s 12.10, just for the record.

I think the implication was that they’ve literally been in the same vessels for over 100 years, and that they hadn’t had to leave their vessel for any reason, nor did they ever get in trouble enough with Heaven to have been forcibly removed from their vessel like Cas was in 4.20… even though he was lucky enough that Jimmy said yes again…

I think most vessels, after the angel leaves for whatever reason, are either left like Raphael’s vessel in 5.03 (basically comatose), or are burned out (like many of the vessels we saw in s9 when the angels fell and were desperate to grab whatever vessel would consent regardless of how ~incompatible~ the vessel may have been for an angel, like Hael in 9.01, and Buddy Boyle’s daughter in 9.03 who literally exploded). Regardless, very few would likely consent again. Jimmy wasn’t going to, until he sacrificed himself so that Claire wouldn’t have to suffer through what he did while acting as Cas’s vessel.

**Castiel:** I wanna make sure you understand. You won’t die or age. If this last year was painful for you, picture a hundred, a thousand more like it.  
 **Jimmy:**  It doesn’t matter. You take me. Just take me.  
 **Castiel:** As you wish.

It didn’t end up mattering much, because Jimmy was dead two episodes later, and Cas was resurrected in his own body. And even THAT might be part of the “carelessness” Ishim and Mirabel were referring to there. How many times has Cas “carelessly” gotten himself blown up? Or liquefied? Or stabbed with gooifying weapons? It’s a lot. But Chuck has a soft spot for Cas and kept bringing him back anyway.

Still, whatever the other angels need to tell themselves to feel superior. I mean Ishim’s whole deal was that he really did hate humans (except Lily Sunder who rejected him…).

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [pretty sure I have a specific vessel tag but I can't remember it off the top of my head...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pretty-sure-I-have-a-specific-vessel-tag-but-I-can%27t-remember-it-off-the-top-of-my-head...) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [that might be it...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that-might-be-it...) [ishi ixi](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ishi-ixi)


	40. Chapter 40

[Nov 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167134683415/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-why-are-you-awake)

114 notes

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/167127225407/why-are-you-awake-cause-fun-fact-in-all-of):

> > _Why are you awake? ‘Cause, fun fact: in all of forever, nothing ever wakes up here. I mean, ever. Ever._
>
>> _Well, Michael’s in no condition to fight, and it’s outside of my power to bring Gabriel and Raphael back. / But you restored Castiel. / Archangels are different. They’re the stuff of primordial creation. Rebuilding them, that’s – It’s time we don’t have._
> 
> Does the line the Empty says mean
> 
> a) the Empty was referring to angels actually waking up on their own, seemingly with no outside forces involved. God actually yanks angels from the Empty and restores them outside of nothingness, into creation
> 
> b) Chuck actually doesn’t get the angel back from nothingness, he does rebuild them from scratch –> whenever Cas died before as an angel, he didn’t come back from the Empty, but was rebuilt from scratch by God. (Consequent spec time: difference now being that he has developed a soul when he was human, so he just not fit in the place where angels go where they die, there’s still a piece of him that cannot go into nothingness, because as Death said souls cannot be destroyed, and metaphorically it’s Cas clinging to his “humanity” that saves him……..?)

Or the option I’ve been operating under:

c) Cas is the only angel ever brought back from the dead. Chuck somehow interfered BEFORE Cas reached the empty and brought him back. This very well could’ve been Cas’s first trip to the empty, despite having “died” numerous times in the past.

and consequently:

c2) Because of all these resurrections, and all of the experiences Cas has been through (i.e. living as a human and potentially having developed an actual soul of his own, or as so many angels have told him over the years that he’s no longer an angel– that when they look at him they don’t see him as an angel anymore…, and when he was Godstiel Death called him a “mutated angel.” I mean,  _he has fundamentally been changed by his experiences_ , and therefore some part of the empty may reject him on these fundamental changes– whether that means he has too much ~human~ in him now or that he just doesn’t completely fit the angel mold anymore will have to be his choices going forward, but he is canonically altered by his experiences, and has been described as UNIQUE among angels because of this). Perhaps that IS what saved him. His fundamental ~humanity~.

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

 


	41. Chapter 41

[Dec 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/168766484605/u-alway-read-into-scenes-and-find-hidden-meanings)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: u alway read into scenes and find hidden meanings. is there one for nick's scenes?**

Nick’s scenes? You mean in 5.01? Lucifer’s vessel, Nick, before he said yes to Luci?

If that is what you mean, then there’s potentially some things in my [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%205.01) tag.

I searched my blog for lucifer and nick posts, but I didn’t find anything relevant. If you’ve got a specific question, or you want me to talk more about Nick as a character, let me know.

Thing is, there really isn’t all that much  _to_  him as a character. He’s mostly a plot device. He’s literally the meatsuit Lucifer needs to wear.

We don’t know all that much about him, since Luci basically blotted him out entirely by the end of the episode. We do know that his wife and child had been murdered horrifically (via his manipulative flashbacks that primed him to say yes to Lucifer). We know that he’s basically already living as a shell of his former self, going through the motions of his life now that his family’s gone.

Lucifer promises him PEACE. (which, if you know me at all, you know how much the show has trained me to recoil at the use of that word, especially by angels…). Wearing the guise of Nick’s murdered wife, he makes this plea:

**LUCIFER** : You need to invite me in.  
 **NICK** : Even if this is real—which it’s not, but assuming it was…why the hell would I do something like that?  
 **LUCIFER** : You people misunderstand me. You call me “Satan” and “devil”, but… Do you know my crime? I loved God too much. And for that, he betrayed me—punished me. Just as he’s punished you. After all, how could God stand idly by while that man broke into your home and butchered your family in their beds?There are only two rational answers, Nick—either he’s sadistic, or he simply doesn’t care. You’re angry. You have every right to be angry. I am angry, too. That’s why I want to find him—hold him accountable for his actions. Just because he created us doesn’t mean he can toy with us, like playthings.  
 **NICK** : If I help you…can you bring back my family?  
 **LUCIFER** : I’m sorry. I can’t. But I can give you the next best thing. God did this to you, Nick. And I can give you justice. Peace.

This is how Luci uses the angelic party line, not lying, but avoiding certain truths to manipulate people. It’s been compared to the sort of deals and powers of speaking partial truths that are traditionally ascribed to the fae. And Nick was depressed and desperate and grieving enough to let himself believe.

And it’s also nearly identical to how he tried (and failed) to get a yes from Sam in 5.03…

In 12.02, Luci used an eerily similar seduction technique on Vince Vincente, and there may be some posts comparing Nick and Vince’s experiences leading up to them saying yes to Luci. I went searching for some and found these:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152118956280/id-say-romance-could-be-used-to-describe-the-part>

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152102894335/12x02-thoughts>

If that doesn’t answer what you’d wanted to know, let me know. :)

[spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

Oct 21, 2016

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'd say romance could be used to describe the part about Vince and his late partner. This episode made me all wary about things going terribly wrong again (going terribly wrong-er?), but I mean, it's SPN, what do I expect? :P**

Hi there, and yeah, that’s true in a sense, but to me it seems more like the same kind of “romantic” that Dean and Mary’s revelations were about than actual love-romance, you know? Because Vince (and I think his lover’s name was Jan? If I’m not mistaken? Imma call her Jan just to have something to call her anyway) and her relationship was framed in the same sort of tragic way that a lot of rock star romances seem to go.

(feeling a little weird that I’m watching 5.01 in the background while typing this up, watching Lucifer seduce Nick into saying yes while wearing his murdered wife…)

Vince has spent his life mourning and regretting how he’d treated her, which was apparently so horribly it had driven her to overdose on pills. Which in a lot of ways reminded me of 5.16 when Sam discovered that John and Mary’s relationship hadn’t been all sunshine and roses either. Dean had to break the hard truth that John and Mary’s marriage was only perfect after she’d died…

Jan (or at least Lucifer-as-Jan) had confirmed that it was Vince “always leaving” her that drove her to kill herself. She’d thought it seemed fitting, to finally be the one to leave HIM. And boy isn’t that extreme? Kinda Romeo and Juliet… not a romance but a tragedy.

So Vince had been living with this guilt for years. He was the one who believed he’d been guilty of driving Jan to her death, and it had left him hollowed out and obsessed with her, to the point that he kept pictures of her all over the place, even in his hotel room.

I’d say it wasn’t so much as romance as guilt and the promise of redemption from that at long last that drove him to say yes.

It was framed in a romantic way more so by the idealized past he’d been clinging to all these years than in an “I truly love her with all my heart” kind of way, you know? Vince didn’t get to truly shine a light on all of that for himself, but hopefully for everyone else (Sam, Dean, Mary, Cas, Crowley, Rowena… everyone) they’ll be given a chance to do that throughout s12.

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [vince vincente](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vince-vincente) [romance is dead pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/romance-is-dead-pffft) [i'm so tempted to revive my darkness vs light tag because it seems to have taken on a much more personal meaning this season](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-so-tempted-to-revive-my-darkness-vs-light-tag-because-it-seems-to-have-taken-on-a-much-more-personal-meaning-this-season) [if s11 was about subverting their past mistakes on a global apocalypse kinda scale](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-s11-was-about-subverting-their-past-mistakes-on-a-global-apocalypse-kinda-scale) [i think s12 is going to be about the same on a much more personal scale](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-s12-is-going-to-be-about-the-same-on-a-much-more-personal-scale)

 

[Jan 5, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169355484225/do-we-know-what-happened-to-nicks-soul-when-he)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do we know what happened to Nick's soul when he said 'yes' to Lucifer? I don't recall seeing what happened to him...**

Hi there! And no, we never had an explicit and undeniable explanation for what happened to Nick when he said yes to Luci. What we do have is Lucifer’s line that convinced Nick to say yes in 5.01:

**NICK** : If I help you…can you bring back my family?  
 **LUCIFER** : I’m sorry. I can’t. But I can give you the next best thing. God did this to you, Nick. And I can give you justice. Peace.

And from the rest of the entire series, the only place we’ve ever seen people get actual “peace” is in their little “stepford bitch in paradise” heavens. Basically, on this show if you want peace, pray for death. :P

The parallel possession in s5 was Michael eventually possessing Adam, based entirely around Zachariah’s “deal” with Adam that if he said yes, he’d be reunited with his mother. Presumably in Heaven, because that’s where his mother was, and where Adam was before Zachariah recruited and resurrected him. From 5.22, we have these two parallel conversations:

**DEAN** : Adam, if you’re in there somewhere, I am so sorry.  
 **MICHAEL/ADAM** : Adam isn’t home right now. 

which is in direct contrast to what Lucifer tells Dean about Sam’s current state of residence:

**DEAN** : Sammy? Are you in there?  
 **LUCIFER/SAM** : Oh, he’s in here, all right. [He punches DEAN again.] And he’s gonna feel the snap of your bones. [Another punch. DEAN falls to the ground.] Every single one. [He hauls DEAN to his feet.] We’re gonna take our time.

Because we knew that Sam was still in there, because he very clearly breaks through Lucifer’s control. By contrast, Adam apparently WASN’T there inside his vessel with Michael.

We don’t know what happened to Nick’s vessel after Lucifer jumped into Sam, but it seems quite likely that he didn’t survive the experience. Now, whether that was because Lucifer lived up to his bargain and released Nick’s soul to find “peace” shortly after possessing him in 5.01, or whether being shot in the head by the Colt in 5.10 was what actually killed “Nick” even if it didn’t kill Lucifer, or whether Nick survived right up until Lucifer abandoned his broken and deteriorating vessel in 5.22, I suppose it’s up to you to decide which version you find most pleasing to believe, since the show has never conclusively said which is the intended truth.

I personally like to think that Lucifer and Michael both honored their respective deals with Nick and Adam, and released their souls as soon as they took possession. And as long as there isn’t anything in canon to contradict that reading, that’s what I’m sticking with, personally.

But yeah, considering we learned that Crowley had magically reconstructed the Nick vessel into a permanent “cage” for Luci during s12, I DEFINITELY believe Nick’s well and truly gone now.

[spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	42. Chapter 42

[Feb 28, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171399357920/so-demons-are-canonically-able-to-see-angels-and)

121 notes

**Anonymous asked: so demons are canonically able to see angels and each others trueforms right? does that mean dean got to see cas' trueform? and also crowley's? bc if that's the case i wonder why he never mentioned anything about that subject**

[winchester-reload](http://winchester-reload.tumblr.com/post/171397654835/so-demons-are-canonically-able-to-see-angels-and):

> It was certainly implied early on that angels and demons could see each other through the meat suits, and by that standard, we can extrapolate that Cas could see Dean’s demon-self, and Dean could see Cas’ angelic-self. But I think it’s been a gray area for a long time. Maybe they can see each other, and there’s just a neglect in mentioning it? Maybe the angels lost the power to see each other at some point, or it’s been conveniently forgotten when it doesn’t suit the plot?
> 
> For the record, I had a whole long argument I was gonna make where I point out reasons in which I think it’s supported in text that they (the angels specifically) CAN’T see through each other’s vessels anymore, (for example, Cas watching the whole porn plot unfold at the end of season 8 while he should have been able to recognize the cupid long before the adorable dudes were making heart-eyes at each other):
> 
>   
> 
> 
> But then, while working through the argument, I realized this idea is subverted every time angels meet up, squint at each other, and go “Oh, hey [insert angelic name here]”… So, I don’t think I can weasel my way out of this one.
> 
> Did Dean and Cas see each other’s true forms? I mean, 
> 
> Why didn’t they mention it at any point? Because,
> 
> Continuity errors, yo.

 

I think while he was a demon (i.e. while he was able to see Cas’s true form), Dean wouldn’t have “cared” about it, because he didn’t care about anything. I mean, canonically, being a demon was like having all his sentimentality shut off.

Once he was recovered, the next scene we see him have with Cas is that awkward scene in Dean’s room where Cas essentially says, “well things are quiet, you’re not in immediate danger of destroying the world, and there’s a female waiting for me in the car so…” and then skedaddled…

Remember, Dean had seen “stolen grace!Cas” who’d been mostly dead that morning before Crowley stole Adina’s grace and force-fed it to him. Cas was likely looking… rather Frankensteined in his angelic form, much the way Vesta had once assessed Sam as being held together with safety pins or whatever back when Gadreel was supposedly healing him from the inside in s9. Look at the hesitance in Dean when he talks to Cas there:

**CASTIEL** : You look terrible.  
[Dean laughs.]  
 **DEAN** : You know, it wouldn’t kill you to lie every now and again.  
 **CASTIEL** : No, it wouldn’t kill me. I just … You …  
 **DEAN** : Forget it. Well, you, on the other hand, you… Looking good. So… Are you back?  
 **CASTIEL** : At least temporarily. It’s a long story. Crowley, stolen grace. There’s a female outside in the car.

I mean yeah, Dean probably did look “terrible” even to Cas’s angelic assessment. He wasn’t a demon anymore, but he was suffering the aftermath of that AND he still had the MoC “tainting” him.

But Cas probably did look “good” to Dean, even when he’d had the demonic ability to “see” angels. And Cas tells him it was only a temporary fix to his problem, and that he’s really not doing as well as he looked right then.

In all honesty, it seems like a really difficult subject. I have no trouble understanding why Dean never brought it up again after that. I mean, the one time he DID ask Cas about it, Cas changed the subject with both hands and practically fled, so… yeah, he wasn’t gonna risk stepping in that mess again with Cas.

But also, Cas knows he cares, and if he ever does want to elaborate, he knows Dean will listen without judgment. So no, I don’t see it as a continuity error in this particular case.

As far as Dean having seen Crowley’s “true face,” I’m pretty sure he did. Like, entirely sure, actually. And again, while he was a demon, he wouldn’t have cared, because he had his own “demonic face” looking back at him in the mirror. He wasn’t gonna recoil or judge. But in 12.15, when Dean and Crowley were walking through the woods looking for Ramsey the Hellhound, Dean was wearing the special hellhound glasses. Watch all the scenes where Dean’s wearing the glasses. He and Crowley are having a rather emotionally charged conversation where Dean thanks Crowley for saving Cas’s life, and the two of them have a bit of a bonding moment.

And Dean never ONCE looks at Crowley while he’s got the glasses on.

It’s not as if he doesn’t know what he’d see, but as if it’s easier (or better, in Dean’s way of thinking) if he can remember that Crowley might be a demon, but he’s earned “personhood” in Dean’s book.

Seeing Crowley’s face again is a reminder he doesn’t seem to want. So he looks everywhere but at Crowley. Until he takes the glasses off, and normal Dean eye contact resumes.

To a certain extent, I think Cas (It’s not an it! It’s Cas!) has also earned this sort of… acceptance doesn’t seem like strong enough a word here, but it’s a form of trust and understanding and complete acceptance, that Dean acknowledges Cas’s personhood as a whole. The form doesn’t matter. Cas matters.

I hope that makes sense…

[oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [demon dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/demon-dean) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [i wrote fic once about sam wanting to see One Nice Thing through those glasses and he saw something that surprised him](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-wrote-fic-once-about-sam-wanting-to-see-One-Nice-Thing-through-those-glasses-and-he-saw-something-that-surprised-him) [i.e. cas's wing wrapped around Dean protectively... and the fact that Dean seemed to know it...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i.e.-cas%27s-wing-wrapped-around-Dean-protectively...-and-the-fact-that-Dean-seemed-to-know-it...) [but i think unless he was specifically invited by cas to 'take a peek' at him with those glasses that dean would choose not to](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-think-unless-he-was-specifically-invited-by-cas-to-%27take-a-peek%27-at-him-with-those-glasses-that-dean-would-choose-not-to)


	43. Chapter 43

[Apr 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172901795885/in-season-8-cas-mr-i-dont-get-words-wrong)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: In season 8, Cas (Mr I don't get words wrong) refers to himself as a seraph several times, but in the latest ep he talks about how an Angel cannot heal an Archangel. I mean, seraphs/archangels are angels, but his word choice seemed super deliberate (in terms or writer word choice) in S8. Do you think this is writing discontinuity or Cas' self esteem or...? (I'm rewatching s8 now so it was a really glaring difference. though I'm not sure when he stops saying seraph.)**

Hi there! As far as I know, Cas has only ever referred to himself as a seraph once, while in Purgatory in 8.05. He’s referred to himself as an Angel many times. I think this is a toad/frog thing:

All seraphs are angels, but not all angels are seraphs…

Cherubs are also angels, but they’re not seraphs.

And Archangels are in a separate class of their own, apparently, hence why killing them requires a special blade, which can only be wielded by another archangel.

So in that respect Cas was using the term “angel” generically to include all other types of angels versus archangels.

I… don’t see anything conflicting here. It’s just semantics. He wasn’t wrong, he used an appropriate word for himself, but he could’ve chosen a more specific word. But if he’d said “seraphs can’t heal archangels” that would’ve actually been less precise, because no other types of angels can heal archangels either.

So is this a case of “he could’ve been more precise with his language to describe this exact circumstance of a seraph attempting to heal an archangel,” or “he was speaking more generally to include all other angels as incapable of offering assistance to an archangel in this exact manner.”

He made a choice to distinguish all other angels as distinct from archangels in this case.

[spn 13.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.18) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)

 

[Apr 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172905583350/angels-refer-to-god-as-father-because-god-created)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: Angels refer to God as father because god created them, then in that sense all creations in this world are God's children. As far as we know(?), angels never met God except for Metatron, before Cas in s11 (well some angels knew Chuck without the knowledge of who he was). But Chuck actually had a father-son-like relationship with the archangels, judging from his interactions with Lucifer. I'm wondering if that's why both Cas and Aneal referred to Chuck as "your father" in 13x18.**

Eh… could be? I mean, Anna said way back in s4 that only FOUR angels had ever seen God face to face (and I’m guessing at least one more than the archangels if you include Metatron, so I’m betting she was misinformed or if that’s the story everyone told, or if she didn’t count Metatron because he was presumed dead/lost… it’s moot anyway…)

But as far as we know, it was only the four archangels plus Metatron who’d ever really had any sort of relationship with Chuck/God before he flapped off the first time.

But before the angels became disillusioned with… everything… most of them still did think of themselves as loyal to God’s perceived plans for everything, up to and including the Apocalypse. Now they don’t have orders to follow anymore. The angels are nearly extinct and they feel purposeless and adrift, and Chuck left them  _again_. But the archangels– at least Gabriel and Lucifer– are being separated from the rest of the angels in a sort of generational way.

I wrote this earlier today that sort of approaches the same theme from a different angle, but yeah.

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172901795885/in-season-8-cas-mr-i-dont-get-words-wrong>

[spn 13.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.18) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	44. Chapter 44

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173118316690/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man)

139 notes

**Anonymous asked: There are only 11 angels in the universe... Man, they're dicks but that's just sad. Also, why do I feel like the Cas and The Empty scene in 13x04 and the Cas and Naomi in Heaven scene are connected? I can't exactly explain how but I feel weird...**

[chiwalker](http://chiwalker.tumblr.com/post/173118108831/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173112095185/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man):
>
>> Well, Naomi said there were nine angels in Heaven. I assume she wasn’t counting herself or Cas. So with the nine that have been “keeping the lights on,” plus Naomi, plus Cas, plus Gabriel, plus Lucifer… we got enough to host The Last Supper… That’s actually really not good…
>> 
>> (also kinda wondering which angel is gonna sacrifice their grace to keep Heaven’s power on… if that might be a thing they’re headed toward, or if someone (probably Jack) can boop a few angels back from the Empty, or if AU Angels might’ve caused some similar calamity in their own version of Heaven and that’s why they’re battling it out for the Earth over there in the first place and some of them might volunteer to go help save our universe’s Heaven instead of continuing their battle in the AU… so many possibilities!)
>> 
>> Back in 13.04 I think most of us believed that Naomi was one of the angels in the Empty, right? But she’s been in something like her own personal version of the Empty all these years instead, rebuilding herself from a torture that left her severely damaged in much the same way she’d done to Cas and other angels throughout time. And yet she survived that, and the Angel Fall, and the civil wars that followed, and has now stepped back up to lead the very very few angels left.
>> 
>> Like, Heaven is sort of becoming the empty, in that it’s empty of angels. I wonder what’s become of the human souls up there? Are their individual Heavens breaking down? Are they aware that there’s something seriously wrong with the Matrix up there? Are they waking up? ARE THE BOBBIES GETTING SURLY?!
> 
> But this ignore the huge THING a few seasons ago(actually the whole Crowley-Cas thing) about getting souls, because “each soul is a beautiful little nuclear reactor”. I mean Death, Crowley, Cas, they were all about getting souls. Crowley floated a loan of souls to Cas to fight Raphael. Has this changed?

You can have all the power in the universe, but if the grid that holds them together falls apart because the angels aren’t there to maintain it… I mean, the angels have been shown to basically be custodians in heaven, from Joshua tending the Garden right down to poor Jophiel who was just doing some routine maintenance on a random door when Luci exploded him back in 11.18, to Anael pushing the button every time a new soul was admitted.

All those admin angels whose only job was taking care of the actual structure of heaven are gone now. Without them, having the power of all those souls literally means nothing if it can’t be channeled, you know?

[spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [finally all the time i've wasted actually making sense of this nonsense is paying off :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/finally-all-the-time-i%27ve-wasted-actually-making-sense-of-this-nonsense-is-paying-off-%3AP)

 

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173128445365/bl-screwed-with-the-mythology-awhile-back-and)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: B &L screwed with the mythology awhile back and said reapers were angels :\**

9.03, yeah I know. But… even the superwiki doesn’t have them listed as angels.

[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Reaper](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DReaper&t=NDhkMTg2NjAxZmNiOTViMjUxODMxYzdjYjhkMmU3MjQ4ODBhZWE2Yiw3RDloTGVZZQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F173128445365%2Fbl-screwed-with-the-mythology-awhile-back-and&m=1)

And since no other writer in any other context has ever suggested this, and everything else we know about them suggests they are NOT angels, I mean…

They didn’t even come out and say “Reapers are angels!” It was implied that they had angel-like abilities. And the fact they were “locked out of Heaven” after Metatron slammed the gates, as per Tessa in 9.22– and yet they were otherwise entirely unaffected by the angel fall spell– doesn’t make them angels. It just makes whatever Metatron did to Heaven that also kept out dead human souls was also impervious to reapers. Does that make dead human souls angels too? I mean, there’s a big difference between suggesting that reapers, and especially rogue reapers who’ve left their posts, may have some similar abilities to angels or even a cooperative partnership with angels, and suggesting that they are some class of angels just because Bucklemming thought these particular abilities sounded “cool” to give this one particular reaper for one particular episode and we’ve never seen such a comparison before or since.

Plus I think Billie “becoming Death” in the way she did proves that if nothing else, Reapers are their own entire category of supernatural being. It’s almost as if every other writer has since doubled down on reminding us that reapers are not angels. They’re connected to Death (not the incarnation of the thing, but the mantle of power), and Death’s a concept that exists on a Chuck and Amara level of being.

But for some reason the indirect assumption that reapers are some sort of angel has lingered from that one toying with canon because Bucklemming thought it was a fun and interesting thing to mess with once. And that’s not how canon works. So their “rogue reaper” in 9.03 (and I suppose also in 8.19) doesn’t get to change the structure of the universe in the rest of canon.

(literally, listed as “rogue reapers”)

So no, I don’t count reapers as angels. They’re agents of Death. Not angels of Heaven.

[reapers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/reapers) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics)

 

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173136265295/has-anyone-counted-how-many-angels-have-died)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Has anyone counted how many angels have died onscreen since they were introduced in S4? And how many Castiel and Sam and Dean have personally taken out?**

I don’t even think it’s possible to count. There have been so many. All those angels we saw Godstiel slaughter in Heaven, how many of those angels falling at the end of 8.23 survived? We just can’t know, you know? Not even mentioning those killed offscreen but directly mentioned, going all the way back to s4.

All the angels Uriel killed when they turned down his recruitment offer. The angels who died in the civil war in s6, the angels who died in the s9 faction wars… that Lucifer ate, that Amara may have eaten… it’s just… too many.

[spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

 

[May 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173531396190/it-got-interesting-when-it-was-first-mentioned-the)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: it got interesting when it was first mentioned the angels going extinct, but now that we have an estimated number and heaven is this close to collapsing... it's such a brave, game-changing move. growing up in carver era where things moved so slow to not at all and now things rapidly evolving makes me so nervous and excited to see where it's going. i love this new era :')**

Oh I know. It’s heartbreaking and fascinating… I would like to introduce you to another anon in my inbox and then we can get some cookies and tissues:

> I know the angels were dicks for the most part but there’s something so sad to me about an entire species—and such an old one—being near complete extinction.

*passes cookies*

[spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) 

 

[May 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173738966805/regarding-cas-leaving-his-vessel-he-was-going-to)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Regarding Cas leaving his vessel, he was going to do it in season 9 to help Sam eject Gadreel and only didn't because he didn't have Sam's consent. So he probably can do it. Not that I want him to**

Yeah, but think of that scene from Cas’s perspective. He would’ve, in that moment, done anything in his power to help Sam, and to help Dean because of his guilt over what had happened to Sam.

It’s actually rather horrifying when you think about it from that direction, you know? Cas’s self-worth wasn’t exactly great around that time, you know? He’d just stolen grace again, after being human for quite a good long stretch. He was especially “attached” to his body at that point, and we saw him in THE VERY NEXT EPISODE lamenting that he couldn’t experience things the same way now that he’d been “graced up” again. So ONE EPISODE AFTER he was compelled to steal grace (not by choice, but because he knew he’d be dead before he could give Dean the warning about the angel possessing Sam not being Ezekiel if he didn’t do something drastic immediately), Cas is faced with a situation that he ALSO feels at least partly responsible for (because he’s the one who vouched for Ezekiel to Dean in 9.01), and he’d do practically ANYTHING to help Dean here, and save Sam here…

He was at a point where the argument “but my body would die if I left it now!” was likely not even on his radar. And would’ve looked… really dickish, you know?

But doubling down on the actual issue at hand here– Sam’s actual consent– serves MULTIPLE purposes in the larger narrative. Because that’s how we got into this mess, you know? Gadreel needed Sam’s YES, however dubiously acquired it may have been, and Cas had no way to even get dubious consent from Sam in this circumstance.

Dean’s order to JUST DO IT ANYWAY wasn’t enough for Cas to override Sam’s CHOICE to consent, you know? Which also reflects back on Sam’s initial YES to Gadreel in 9.01. IT WASN’T DEAN CRAMMING AN ANGEL INTO SAM AGAINST HIS WILL.

So… there’s that aspect, but also if Cas could’ve violated Sam’s will and just possessed him anyway, regardless of what that would’ve meant for him, he would’ve tried.

But this wasn’t about Cas’s self-worth in this scene, it was about Sam’s agency. So that’s how it was written.

But also, yeah, I think if they were to explore this conundrum again (which they’re sort of tangentially doing via Lucifer locked into his specially built Nick Suit, I think it would eventually be made clear that they’re both bound to their respective bodies in ways that other angels just… aren’t.

[spn 9.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.01) [spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [spn 9.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.11) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	45. Chapter 45

[May 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174022415950/would-dean-have-really-been-able-to-eject-michael)

57 notes

**Anonymous asked: Would Dean have really been able to eject Michael if he'd just said "get out"? I was under the impression that once an angel is inside a person (heh), they don't have to leave even if that person changes their mind. The angel only needs permission again if they want to possess that person again after having left.. Is there some canon evidence against this that I'm forgetting?**

Oh no, that was the entire premise of 9.10. The problem was that with the angel “in charge,” Sam was trapped so far inside his own mind he wasn’t even aware he was possessed, you know? It took Crowley jailbreaking Sam’s mind from the inside in order to get Sam to tell Gadreel to get out. 

Which Sam did and Gadreel immediately had to leave. Them’s the rules. :P

They used this again in 11.18… that was the entire point of setting up that spell in the church, to trap Lucifer and use the spell that Dean had attempted to use on Sam in 9.09 that led to the whole “Alter the sigil, alter the spell” deception, Gadreel!Sam killing Kevin, etc etc.

They hoped that sigil/spell would work on Casifer long enough for Dean to make an appeal to Cas the way he’d tried in 9.09 to do with Gadreel!Sam. Unlike with Sam, Crowley’s last ditch attempt to possess Cas long enough to talk sense into him, to get him to eject Lucifer, didn’t work.

Thing with Dean is, we KNOW he doesn’t want to be possessed by Michael, so HOW are they gonna “bring Dean back to the surface” to take control long enough to eject him?

That seems like it would be first on their agenda to try, you know?

Which reminds me of his deal with Michael, which I SINCERELY HOPE we get the full details of from Cas in 14.01. Cas knows all the details, and everyone else is gonna want to hear the how and why of it, you know?

(including all of us)

(meanwhile, I’ve already seen several coda fics covering it… I’m sure the hellatus will be FILLED with them)

My impression? The line we DID hear Dean say during the dealmaking:

 **Dean:**  This is a one-time deal. I’m in charge. You’re the engine, but I’m behind the wheel.

That leaves me with the impression that he’d thought he’d pre-arranged for Michael to gtfo as soon as Lucifer was dead… but I imagine Michael only agreed knowing there was a loophole he could exploit…  because Dean may have thought that was a good enough gtfo clause, but Michael could’ve interpreted it in bad faith to make it mean the exact opposite.

Like, Michael could assume that the “one time deal” aspect of it wasn’t the possession overall, but “who will be in charge” bit.

OH NO. IT’S DEAN’S INABILITY TO USE THE RIGHT WORDS. THAT’S WHY WE’RE HERE.

HECK. HECK HECK HECK.

Well, there you go. THEMES!!!

GAH WITH THE THEMES!

[spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [miscommunication and dramatic irony are the twin big bads of s13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/miscommunication-and-dramatic-irony-are-the-twin-big-bads-of-s13) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[Sep 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178437470825/i-usually-try-not-to-think-like-this-before-seeing)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: I usually try not to think like this before seeing the episodes & I know that we haven’t seen them so we can’t know yet, but I am scared of the possibility of Michael being expelled & Dean’s damage is underplayed. I mean Raphael’s vessel was catatonic and Sam almost went insane (albeit he was specifically tortured in hell), but in s11 Cas was basically fine after his possession and I’m just worried that some of Dean’s trauma will be addressed but not to the extreme extent that’s canon consistent**

Well, considering it’s taken Sam how many years to acknowledge that he was kinda messed up from Hell, and was still suffering from the trauma Lucifer inflicted on his soul in the cage for a year, and only acknowledged that fact out loud in 13.12 when talking to Rowena… I mean… what’s your definition of “underplayed?”

I think if Lucifer had only ridden around in Sam the way he did in Cas, Sam’s damage would’ve been substantially less than what we actually saw. He didn’t consider that “possession damage,” but hell trauma. It was the year of being specifically the 100% focus of Lucifer’s attention, when he had nothing else to do in the cage other than tormenting Sam that did most of that damage.

Comparing what would happen to Dean under Michael’s possession can’t reasonably be compared to Raphael’s vessel’s damage, either. We know NOTHING about the man Raphael had possessed. Was he Raphael’s “true vessel” the way Dean is? Was he prepared for what he would experience while Raphael’s vessel? Did Raphael even care about how he used that man’s body the way Cas cared about Jimmy? Or like we saw Michael use John Winchester’s body in 5.13? Or like Michael promised to do the same for Dean in 5.13?

 **MICHAEL** : […] You know, unlike my brothers, I won’t leave you a drooling mess when I’m done wearing you.  
 **DEAN** : Well, what about my dad?  
 **MICHAEL** : Better than new.

So… I mean, he made it sound like he was powerful enough to not damage his vessel, especially his “Sword.”

I also wonder what the fate of his AU vessel is gonna be. Did that man survive his possession? Are we gonna learn his fate? Is he still recovering? Is he dead? Did Michael send his soul on to Heaven years ago, or is he still alive now? I think that’ll tell us a lot about what Dean can expect, at least physically.

And I mean, was Cas REALLY “basically fine” after Lucifer’s possession, or was he fairly emotionally and mentally traumatized? Because if you think he was “basically fine,” then I’m concerned we’re not watching the same show.

Not to mention the fact Cas is a purpose-built angel vessel. So physically I didn’t expect him to suffer ill effects of saying yes. But Cas? Was absolutely not “basically fine.”

And Dean? He’s been through A Lot. I mean, he may never have been possessed by an angel, but heck if he hasn’t tempered himself against supernatural BS over the years…

I would be SHOCKED if there were lasting physical consequences of Dean’s possession, but I can almost guarantee there will be mental/emotional consequences. At least as much as there was from Demon!Dean.

So… I honestly think you might need to shift your expectations. Because the whole “catatonic” thing is just… not relevant and hasn’t been for any other angel possession case we’ve ever seen on the show. In retrospect, it reads more as proof that Raphael was just a dick who hated humanity and left his vessel like that just because he felt like it (or even on PURPOSE) than “oh gosh, that’s the true result of angel possession!”

[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [i think those are my tags... heck why don't we get the popup list in the inbox >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-those-are-my-tags...-heck-why-don%27t-we-get-the-popup-list-in-the-inbox-%3E.%3E) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [but seriously I don't think this is something to worry about weeks before the season even starts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-seriously-I-don%27t-think-this-is-something-to-worry-about-weeks-before-the-season-even-starts) [just picture how disgusted dean will be with himself about Michael's total lack of human culture](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-picture-how-disgusted-dean-will-be-with-himself-about-Michael%27s-total-lack-of-human-culture) [and try to laugh at his hat because seriously that's far more productive than](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-try-to-laugh-at-his-hat-because-seriously-that%27s-far-more-productive-than) [preemptively working yourself into knots about stuff that's impossible to even speculate about you know?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/preemptively-working-yourself-into-knots-about-stuff-that%27s-impossible-to-even-speculate-about-you-know%3F)


	46. Chapter 46

[Jul 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176104033180/i-know-what-cas-did-to-donatello-was-torture-in)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: I know what Cas did to Donatello was torture in itself. I just meant that getting the info from Charlie was a relatively time sensitive issue. I was just curious why AU!Castiel (or any other angel there) didn't just quickly strip the info from her mind and be on their way. I mean, I know from a story perspective, there had to be a reason for the plot to unfold. But just practically, from the resources they had available, it seems like the AU!angels should have been more efficient. *shrug***

I think the implication was that not just any old angel even had that ability to strip info from human minds that way, that that was something pretty much only Castiel could do. I mean, otherwise why wouldn’t other angels just do this all the time, going right back to the apocalypse…

Why did Uriel (and CAS! remember, Cas was there too) need Dean to torture Alastair in 4.16? Why didn’t Cas just strip the thoughts from Alastair and be done with it? (hint: because that wasn’t about getting info– that Uriel knew all along Alastair didn’t have anyway– it was about torturing both Dean into submission to do what he was told, when it was told by Heaven, when Dean was being recalcitrant about blindly following orders, AND punishing Castiel for his disobedience at the same time, by using this specific method of torture to hurt CAS– watching the man he saved from Hell get literally thrown right back in.

I mean, even IN HEAVEN, they needed Naomi’s brain poking torture halo or her dentist’s drill thingy to reprogram angels and “erase” memories to force them back into “proper working order” or whatever. Even Naomi– whose job it was to literally do this to angels– required tools to do so and couldn’t just “boop” everything the way we saw Cas do in 13.14, and AU!Castiel intended to do to AU!Charlie.

Like, in 11.02, the angels who’d captured Cas when he was under the attack dog spell were torturing him for information in the only ways they had available to them, and they were “experimentally” using the torture halo thingy and one of them even SAID he’d only seen Naomi use it once and neither of them were sure of how it worked. The show has told us repeatedly that other angels just can’t DO that. :P

13.14 and 13.22 explained everything we’ve ever needed to know about why Cas didn’t pull out this handy trick ever before, because not only had he sworn a vow never to use that power against an unwilling person, AND that not only did using that power do irrevocable harm to the victim,  _it did irrevocable harm to Cas to hurt people that way_.

This isn’t a casual power, but more of a double-edge sword of last resort.

And now I feel all icky from just thinking about it this much because >.>

[spn 13.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.22) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [spn 11.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.02) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [this is not a 'handy trick' he's been holding up his sleeve for no reason](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-not-a-%27handy-trick%27-he%27s-been-holding-up-his-sleeve-for-no-reason) [they framed it EXPLICITLY as something that literally breaks him to use](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they-framed-it-EXPLICITLY-as-something-that-literally-breaks-him-to-use)

 

[Oct 16, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179113914110/hi-mittens-i-have-been-home-the-last-few-days)

36 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi Mittens. I have been home the last few days and I have been watching SPN on TNT. They showed Inside Man and I was wondering. Does anyone know what happened to Metetron’s grace? Cas had it. Did I miss something? Thanks**

Hi hi! Sorry, I was distracted just now watching Cas punch Metatron in the face. :P (10.18 is on)

Anyway, your question. Yeah, we have no idea what happened to Metatron’s grace, other than the fact Metatron never got it back. So where is it?

Maybe in the same place Cas hid the First Blade? Could be somewhere in the bunker, I guess, but we just don’t know. We also don’t know what happens to grace when the angel it belonged to dies, and Metatron died in a fairly spectacular fashion, blown into nothingness by Amara in 11.21.

I like thinking Cas has a stash somewhere of Bad Things Rendered Useless, and the First Blade and Metatron’s grace would both make nice additions to that collection.

But more seriously, we really don’t know.

[spn 10.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.17) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

 

[Oct 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179221564745/so-i-havent-done-a-casual-viewer-update-on-mr)

247 notes

So I haven’t done a Casual Viewer update on Mr. Mittens viewing, so here goes. He watched this morning, and really enjoyed the episode. He knew going in it was a bucklemming, but he’s convinced Speight’s directing contributed heavily to it being so good. :P

Now on to the actual point of this post: the Two Hotly Debated Issues.

I mentioned to him that there seemed to be two things that were generating the most discussion in fandom today, namely:

  1. Is Dean really Dean again… did Michael actually vacate the premises; and
  2. Did Nick murder his own family with that hammer before Lucifer ever came near him



Well, Mr. Mittens has opinions on both of these subjects. First, yes he believes Dean is actually Dean again. And yes, he believes that Nick actually did murder his own family.

And that’s what the Casual Viewing Audience is apparently left to believe.

Strangely, I find that BOTH of these circumstances– the Dean and the Nick compare/contrast experiences– prove the other.

We’re shown Nick literally “snapping,” and reacting in a way that had some folks shouting OMG IS HE STILL POSSESSED BY LUCIFER?! DID LUCIFER REALLY LEAVE THAT MUCH DAMAGE BEHIND? IS NICK STILL FEELING LUCIFER’S “””INFLUENCE?”””

And based on that assumption, we’re left wondering how Dean might still be experiencing MICHAEL’S influence on him, and being teased with that worst-case scenario of Dean potentially exhibiting some lasting effects of his possession, or even possibly  _still_  being lowkey possessed now.

But I am here to put forth actual canon that pretty much trashes all of those theories, because that’s who I am as a person. Sorry to everyone from the folks reveling in the superdark and angsty headcanons, as well as those screaming about not caring about Nick because he’s just pointless to the narrative. But I think the writers (yes, even including bucklemming here) have earned just a wee bit of credit in the “yes, we actually remember past canon, and we’re not gonna apologize for actually referencing it constantly, so please try to keep up” department.

Because despite a lot of posts I’ve read today, THERE IS BASIS FOR ALL OF THIS IN CANON. You just have to dig back a relatively long way to find it… like 5.03 back…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179218739575/someone-described-the-scar-on-deans-shoulder-as-a>  
since I already made one tongue-in-cheek post about it already this morning… whether or not the scar actually has anything to do with Michael’s return ticket… Dean has been left as what’s essentially an “open phone line” dialed into Michael. That has to be a concern for him going forward, that Michael might just jump his bones at any moment without his consent.

At any rate, I made [another post last night](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179199202960/hey-with-all-these-theories-about-maybe-nick) that included these lines:

> But Nick seems to have retained some of Lucifer’s mannerisms… or did Lucifer pick those up from Nick in the first place? The way Dinkle seemed to pick up some Dean mannerisms, or at least borrowed from Dean’s playbook and tried to make it his own for a bit there…
> 
> It makes for interesting thoughts about how much the vessel influences the angel, and vice versa, you know?

I have seen some criticism in the last week about Jensen’s portrayal of Michael, and THIS was what I had been assuming about why there’s subtle differences between the AU Michael’s original portrayal by Christian Keyes, and THIS “version” of him. Because honestly, isn’t that one of the LAST things an angel would want to admit to? That they’re possibly  _influenced_  by the human vessels that they possess?

Because this HAS been a thematic undercurrent for like… ever. I mean consider Cas’s weaksauce excuse for shamefully admitting to a HUMAN WEAKNESS by diverting blame to his vessel back in 5.14. He blamed his craving for red meat on Jimmy,  _who had been dead for half a season at that point while Cas had been resurrected alone in that replica vessel_. Cas may have developed that craving from the simple experience of having occupied a human vessel himself, you know? Subtle difference, but this is not the only time this particular implication has been made.

Let’s revisit Anna, who may have been an angel before cutting out her grace, but she was then  _born into her own human body_. Those cravings for very human feelings and experiences… “loyalty, forgiveness, love. Chocolate cake. Sex.”

Let’s also revisit Zachariah, who detested the need to even associate with a human vessel, or Uriel who referred to humans as “mud monkeys” and  “plumbing on two legs.” They very specifically detested their time in human vessels because it forced them to experience humanity so closely.

So this is where Nick comes in. Because right now a lot of people are wondering how much Lucifer Damage he’s experiencing and attempting to conflate that with how much Michael Damage Dean might display… but I offer this:

Dean, being the character we’re actually emotionally invested in, will defy what we believe Nick– i.e. the character we saw for one episode 9 years ago and therefore know little about and have almost no emotional investment in– demonstrates as the Darkest Possible Mirror.

Because has Sam ever demonstrated “Lucifer-like behavior” post-possession? NO. Why? Because when Lucifer was using Sam as a vessel, Lucifer was the one influenced BY SAM, rather than the other way around.

Remember Hester yelling at Dean in 7.21? Because I do:

 **Hester:**  The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!

The very touch of humanity “corrupts” angels.

Hannah sort of danced around this subject in 10.07 before deciding those human things weren’t for angels, and swore never to take another vessel. She couldn’t handle those feelings, and chose to separate herself from them permanently (despite needing to take another vessel down the line…).

So, this is literally canon, that human vessels affect the angels who possess them. And honestly, this says a lot of wonderful things about Jimmy Novak, if we have him to thank for a lot of the reason Cas is who he has become today.

And now we’ve been given valid reasons to suspect that Nick had never been a good person who had become a monster because of Lucifer’s possession, but have had it heavily implied that Nick himself was the “monster” who murdered his own family, up to and including the scene from 5.01 where he awoke from a nightmare in bed [soaked in his wife’s blood](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D83%26pid%3D22967%23top_display_media&t=YmJjZWY3ZWU5YTRmMTA4OWJlOTgxODAyN2U3ZWQ0NzZjNWYwMTNmNCxXYW5pWmpOQw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179221564745%2Fso-i-havent-done-a-casual-viewer-update-on-mr&m=1):

And now with him looking practically identical at the end of 14.02, after we saw him kill his neighbor in the exact same way his wife and child were murdered, with a bloody hammer, we’re left to wonder how much of this “monstrosity” Nick may have picked up from Lucifer (right down to the snap of the fingers in a fit of pique), or how much of those mannerisms Lucifer had instead picked up from Nick.

Considering how much of Dean that Michael had adopted into his own personality– from the penchant for fancy suits to some of his verbal quirks demonstrated both in his conversation with Sister Jo when he was making the point that he had access to all of Dean’s thoughts and memories as well as in his flirtation and seduction of the werewolf lady in 14.02– it seems obvious that these are the conclusions we’re being invited to draw here.

Now, all of this could very well be a red herring that later canon will stomp all over for one reason or another, but this is the only conclusion that doesn’t require us to suggest that some aspect of this collection of facts is a “plot hole” or an anomalous “bad writing choice” or “irrelevant.”

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.02) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [nick the possibly murderous vessel of lucifer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nick-the-possibly-murderous-vessel-of-lucifer)


	47. Chapter 47

[Oct 24, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179402780750/lexininja-hi)

5 notes

[lexininja](http://lexininja.tumblr.com/)

 

[ Hi Mittens. I read so much wonderful Dean/Cas fics…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179397390200/hi-mittens-i-read-so-much-wonderful-deancas-fics)

> Can I add to and ask your opinion on something a little further that is sort of a HC of mine? To bring it together from pre S4 on. Sam was Azazel’s favorite because he knew Sam was Lucifer’s true vessel. But if Sam had lost Special Kid Hunger Games, the fact that demon blood had manifested powers and abilities had 2 practical uses. 1 - it gave a human the power to control and kill demons so they weren’t immediately usurped abd killed by their own army.

 

(sorry about that, I got lazy and just copy/pasted the second bit of your reply here… the image reads “2- it would make that human a strong enough vessel to contain Lucifer once they freed him, even if it wasn’t the ‘true’ vessel planned by heaven.”)

I’m not sure whether or not Azazel knew that Sam was Lucifer’s destined “true vessel.” He may have, but I think it’s more likely that he was told that Sam was of primary importance, and that– like the angels knew of Dean– there were bigger plans for him, but not necessarily  _what_  the plan was.

And that demon blood? It seemed to give all the Special Children different powers, you know? I think it more allowed them to be controlled BY demons rather than the other way around. In some weird ways, it gave Sam an immunity to demonic powers used against him (like when Lilith tried to blast him in 3.16… but then again, we later learned that Lilith had bigger plans for him anyway, since he was destined to kill HER, but only after 65 OTHER seals were destroyed first, you know? She was still biding her time, so in retrospect we don’t even know if THAT was a true feature of the demon blood, or if it was just her tricking Sam and making him THINK that he was somehow immune to her power, pushing him into position to accept Ruby’s help, including “fortifying” himself with even more demon blood.)

Before Sam said yes to Lucifer in 5.22, he drank like five GALLONS of demon blood. Back in 2.21, all those special children had had what… a few drops of demon blood when they were 6 months old? YIKES.

Cas also confirmed in 5.21 that Nick was drinking gallons of demon blood just to keep from exploding all the time. It was never made clear WHY, since no other angel vessel has ever had to consume demon blood to keep from exploding, but I think it was included to make sense of why Sam alone was corrupted with demon blood as an infant way back in the pilot episode… (I mean we only learned this fact later, in 2.21, but still… gotta pick up all those loose plot threads at the theoretical end of the plot journey…)

We’ve also learned that vessel compatibility is a thing for all angels, and not just Lucifer. I think the demon blood thing was to signify just how corrupting Lucifer was to his vessels, even vessels who could contain other archangels without difficulty. Who even knows, because the show never really gave an explanation for it.

But like the exploding vessels in early s9 when all the angels were seeking vessels and settling for whatever they could get, or Cas’s issues with containing the power of all the purgatory souls in 7.01, and Lucifer’s hunt for a suitable vessel in early s12 that left a string of gooey corpses for the demons to clean up after… the problem does seem to have resolved itself, so it’s possible that that was just one more factor that was a product of the specific prophesy and circumstances built up around the apocalypse, and the fact that there was a very specific series of switches that needed to be flipped in order for everything prophesied to come to fruition, you know?

Since Cas didn’t need to guzzle demon blood while the vessel of Lucifer, and as far as we know neither did Nick 2.0 (possibly because of the adjustments Crowley engineered into him, or possibly just because he was no longer part of that specific apocalypse prophesy scenario), we just don’t know.

[lexininja](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lexininja) [spn s4](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s4) [spn 5.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.21) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [spn 7.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.01) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)[angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

 

[Nov 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180299653915/how-did-jimmy-die-but-nick-survived-being-shot-in)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: How did Jimmy die but Nick survived being shot in the head with the colt by Dean?**

I mean… we don’t know that Nick DID survive that… but being shot by the Colt wasn’t a fatal injury to Lucifer, and unlike most demons, angels heal their vessels after injury.

Short aside here to remind everyone that Crowley was able to return to his “dead” meatsuit in 11.01, and again in 12.23 because MAGIC, and not because his vessel somehow survived. The same was implied for what Crowley did to Nick to make him into the perfect vessel for Lucifer. Whether he shoved Nick’s soul back into his body or not (which… yikes if he did, that’s just horrific), we still don’t know if Nick was even still in there when Sam said yes to Lucifer in 5.23.

We never once saw Nick’s body after Lucifer jumped into Sam. All we know about what happened to him during those intervening years, we know from Crowley in s12. We don’t even learn that Crowley had trapped Lucifer in that vessel until the final scene of 12.12 (making it doubly painful that he’d destroyed that Lance– theoretically the only weapon they had at the time that could potentially kill Lucifer).

Crowley monologues what he’d done to Lucifer in 12.13:

> I’ve had a dozen of my most loyal studying the cage where you were held at the molecular level. They managed to replicate the material. They made those chains. Getting you here…well, that was a different matter. […]  I managed to pervert that spell. So your essence wasn’t sent back to the cage, but instead, we found your discarded vessel a few years ago… repaired it, improved it, making it a fitting final home for the real you. 

The phrase he uses–  _discarded vessel_ – makes me really believe that Nick wasn’t using it anymore. And then in 12.15, Crowley clarifies:

> That chain around your neck? Was nothing. A stylish accessory. This vessel… That’s your true prison. It’s been warded with runes and spellwork from the Cage, carved into every molecule. In there? I own you. I’m just getting started. 

So whatever Nick’s “discarded vessel” was after Lucifer left, my guess is it was essentially a corpse, and that Nick wasn’t home anymore. Does that mean Nick was killed by the Colt? Meh… Cas was stabbed in the heart with the demon knife and Jimmy was fine after that, because angels heal their vessels of wounds they survive. And the Colt didn’t have the power to kill Lucifer… because he survived, and healed the wound.

Meanwhile, in both 4.23 and 5.23, Cas was disintegrated on an atomic level.  _He died_. His vessel (including Jimmy inside in 4.23) died. Chuck resurrected him a sparkly new body in 5.01 and again at the end of 5.23, but didn’t shove Jimmy in there with him. A kindness, really.

But regardless of whether Nick died from that bullet wound in 5.10, I sincerely doubt he survived Lucifer leaving his vessel in 5.23. Lucifer didn’t have a great track record of bothering to keep his “discarded vessels” alive, after all. Not a single one of his other vessels survived his possession– barring Cas, who is a special case because purpose-built angel vessel body also occupied by an angel instead of a human soul, so with the power to heal himself the way a regular human couldn’t.

Well, this got longer than you were probably expecting… :P

[spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [spn 5.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.23) [spn 4.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.23) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 12.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.13) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12)[spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [spn 11.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.01) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [jimmy novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jimmy-novak) [rip fuckface](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rip-fuckface) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [can you believe we still don't know nick's last name?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/can-you-believe-we-still-don%27t-know-nick%27s-last-name%3F) [nick the possibly murderous vessel of lucifer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nick-the-possibly-murderous-vessel-of-lucifer)

 

[Dec 8, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180937350170/i-dont-understand-about-the-power-of-souls-in)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: I don't understand about the power of souls, in "Appointment in Samara" Death said souls can't be slice and in season 12 and 14 the lore has change, so what's your thoughts on this topic?**

Hi there! I think they’re… not being sliced? From 6.11 in regards to the damaged, tortured state of Sam’s soul after spending a year in the cage with Lucifer, and Dean’s suggestion that Death just “hack the hell part off”:

**DEATH** Dean, Dean, Dean. What do you think the soul is? Some pie you can slice? The soul can be bludgeoned, tortured, but never broken. Not even by me.

Death couldn’t just erase the hell damage, because it’s part of Sam’s soul. Cas shifted it to himself in 7.17, taking the damage on himself and healing it over time.

And again from 6.11, regarding Dean’s assumptions about the human soul:

**DEATH** I think it’s a little more than that. Today, you got a hard look behind the curtain. Wrecking the natural order’s not quite such fun when you have to mop up the mess, is it? This is hard for you, Dean. You throw away your life because you’ve come to assume that it’ll bounce right back into your lap. But the human soul is not a rubber ball. It’s vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine. So… I think you’ve learned something today.

But there’s also the fact that the human soul is essentially a power source. Cas tapped into Bobby’s soul in 6.18, and used the power of all the souls in Purgatory to kill Raphael in 6.22. Did Cas “cut” those souls, or just borrow power from them the way angels can “sip” the grace of other angels to recharge themselves? I mean canon hasn’t given us a definitive explanation on this but this is the explanation that makes the most sense to me, and it’s how I’ve been thinking about it for years now. Nothing has ever contradicted it, anyway. So I consider it plausible.

[spn 6.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.11) [spn 7.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.17) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18) [spn 14.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.08) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

 

[Dec 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181018647985/im-watching-609-and-this-exchange-sam-yeah)

208 notes

I’m watching 6.09 and this exchange:

**SAM** : Yeah. Okay. Look. Brings up a question. So, say you got a soul and you’re on a case, and your brother gets abducted by aliens—  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, then you do everything you can to get him back.  
 **SAM** : Right! You do, but, what about when there are no more leads for the night? Are you supposed to just sit there in the dark and suffer, even when there’s nothing that can be done at that moment?  
 **DEAN** : YES!  
 **SAM:** What?  
 **DEAN** : Yes, you sit in the dark and feel the loss.  
 **SAM** : Absolutely! But couldn’t I just do all that and have sex with the hippie chick?  
 **DEAN** : No!  
 **SAM** : It’d be in the dark.  
 **DEAN** : No you couldn’t because you would be suffering, and you can’t just turn that off for the night.  
 **WAITRESS** : Thanks, guys.  
 **DEAN** : Thank y—  
 **SAM** : Why not?  
 **DEAN** : Because if you had a soul, your soul wouldn’t let you.  
 **SAM** : So you’re saying having a soul equals suffering.  
 **DEAN** : Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.  
 **SAM** : Like, the million times you almost called Lisa. So you’re saying suffering is a good thing.  
 **DEAN** : I’m saying it’s the only game in town.

So Sam, currently without his soul, is trying to understand the function of a soul, trying to understand how to adapt his behavior to align with how he would’ve reacted when he did have his soul. Dean boils all of it down to, “having a soul equals suffering.”

So…

In 14.08:

**COSMIC ENTITY** : Stop interrupting! Start paying attention. I’m taking him. And where I’m taking you is worse than Hell… because at least Hell is something. Ohh. Ohh, God, they look scared. Does that hurt you? Good… because I want it to. 

and

**CAS** : I’m the one you want. I’m the one who woke you up.  
 **COSMIC ENTITY** : You? But you’re already mine.  
 **CAS** : Not for years… eons maybe. But if you’ll agree, I will go now, and I will go willingly.  
 **COSMIC ENTITY** : Deal. [Cas closes his eyes, waiting to be taken, but the Entity laughs] Oh, but not now. No, no, no, no, no. No, you see, I-I meant what I said. I-I want you to suffer. I want you to go back to– to your normal life and– and then forget about this and forget about me. And– And then, when you finally give yourself permission to be happy and let the sun shine on your face, that’s when I’ll come. That’s when I’ll come to drag you to nothing.  
 **CAS** : I accept. 

So… the entity wanted Cas to suffer. He wanted Cas to hurt even before this deal was struck. Suffering, the domain of the human soul. And Cas is there. Suffering.

Which also reminds me of this line from 10.03:

**SAM** : What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human.  
 **CASTIEL** : Well… I see his point. You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier.

Do with this information what you will… I know I’ll personally be rolling over on the floor, crying.

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.08) [spn s14 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-meta-rewatch) [spn 6.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.09) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [you learned it from the goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-learned-it-from-the-goats) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)

 

[Dec 15, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181151264525/thats-not-how-consent-works-show-as-usual-this)

217 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/181113192593/thats-not-how-consent-works-show-as-usual-this):

> [eriquin](http://eriquin.tumblr.com/post/181094626470/thats-not-how-consent-works-show-as-usual-this):
>
>> [tippitv](http://tippitv.tumblr.com/post/181094617072/thats-not-how-consent-works-show):
>>
>>> That’s not how consent works, show!
>> 
>> As usual, this show doesn’t give a shit about consent.
> 
> I think that was the point though - Michael is messing with Dean and whatever he did to him that’s been messing him up with weird things like the swooshy vision and freaking out the djinn who tried to look in his head, we’ve had enough warning that of course Michael wouldn’t just ditch out and leave Dean without being able to come right back in without needing to ask again… I’m guessing whatever he did it’s like legally he “never left”. So he got to set up his whole chess game and mess with Dean to give him some hope, then show he was running the con the whole time and take over Dean again like LOL sucks to be you, you’ve been mine the whole time. Taken in a consent light, and Michael talking about Dean being too much trouble before he broke him it’s WAY more horrific and I think meant to come across that way, not like, a plot hole. I mean it can’t be a plot hole that the writers forgot the consent thing when Michael specifically has lines explaining why it doesn’t matter to him and Dean’s consent is a joke to him that he can get around as he likes >.> 

I think, in addition to the callback to 5.03, and how Raphael was able to reclaim his vessel again via the “open phone line” since his vessel didn’t evict him but he left voluntarily, this is also a reminder of the vast differences between angels like Gadreel (who needed another “yes” from his Tahmoh vessel in 9.10) and archangels like Michael and Raphael.

It’s also the loophole that Michael specifically exploited in securing consent in the first place. I wrote about this back after 13.23 here:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174033192670/it-seems-weird-that-possession-could-come-with>

This was some faerie-level word-twisting, but the way Dean phrased his consent at the original possession left this specific door open in this very specific way:

> SO. What did Dean MEAN by the “one time deal?” Probably his INTENT was “you only get to ride the Dean Buggy this one time, for this specific event and under these set conditions. That’s it.”
> 
> But the same “one time deal” to MICHAEL? Who clearly knew he needed a new and not-squished vessel in the long term? Dean’s full contingency clause:
> 
> “If we do this, it’s a one-time deal. I’m in charge. You’re the engine, but I’m behind the wheel.”
> 
> It’s EASILY re-interpreted as needed that the “one time deal” part of it is strictly applicable to Dean being “in charge” and NOT specifically applicable to the possession overall, you know?

Dean MEANT that Mikey had a one-time-deal of possessing him AT ALL, while Michael chose to take it as “Dean has a one-time chance to be in control, and then cedes all control to me, The Archangel Micheal, in perpetuity thereafter.”

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.09) [spn 14.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.02) [spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)


	48. Chapter 48

[Oct 9, 2015](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/130817339420/neven-ebrez-mahbbys-angelswatchingover)

85 notes

[](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/image/130817339420)  


[neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/130813874033):

> [mahbbys](http://mahbbys.tumblr.com/post/130812893604):
>
>> [angelswatchingover](http://angelswatchingover.tumblr.com/post/130812468603):
>>
>>> [neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/130810942848):
>>>
>>>> You understood correctly. Crowley needed a witch to undo it all. In 11x03 Dean and Sam will be with Rowena for a bit. Putting Cas in a different vessel while his is fixed would certainly add to the male -> female imagery. Honestly, there’s really no reason it needs to happen tho. Rowena could simply cure him inside that meat suit. If extraction to a female vessel (Claire) is done, it will solely be done to fold into that imagery imo.
>>>> 
>>>> There’s really no other narrative purpose for it that I could see, other than illustrating Cas’ (potential also?) gender indifference, which seems counter intuitive to Crowley still wanting to be called King, identifying as male, dispute wearing female skin. The show just spent a lot of time to illustrate the point that demons, in general, gender identify, so I don’t know why they’d show Angels as different, being that they are a species that swaps vessels/hosts as well. Of course, the demon did ask about Crowley’s perceived gender, so maybe it’s common that demons are gender fluid?
>>>> 
>>>> This is what I’m talking about when I talk about the weakness of Supernatural’s writing. What *exactly* were we supposed to learn from Crowley swapping gender roles and how that factors into his self perception? That it’s a thing among demons? Or not? Supernatural often depicts shit, but you can’t tell what they are cohesively trying to say. All I can say is that for some reason, gender fluidity is a thing in the show this season. For some reason.
>>> 
>>> Crowley is in a bit of a different situation from Cas, though. He is a demon who is possessing a meat suit with or without it’s consent. And we don’t know if the original owner of that body is still alive as it has been stated many times that demons often kill the person in the meat suit while they take possession of the body. Cas was resurrected into a body custom made for him. Jimmy’s body was destroyed and his soul was released to heaven. Cas’ body is no longer a vessel he shares with a human but his and his alone. Can he leave it? What would happen to it? 
>>> 
>>> Also, demons probably gender identify because they were once humans who had a particular gender. Whereas angels are a whole different species and it’s never been confirmed that their true forms have genders. Raphael and Hannah have both fluidly moved between male and female vessels seemingly without a preference. And most of them behave in pretty gender-neutral ways.
>>> 
>>> So many questions about this… SPN always leaves me with more questions about its mythology than it resolves.  
>> 
>> Crowley didn’t have to leave his vessel to escape the spell, though. He had to leave his vessel to avoid being stabbed by the angel blade that Cas was wielding since his vessel couldn’t move. He stayed in a mobile (female) vessel until they removed the spell from his male one. (We’ve also already had multiple instances of both angels and demons swapping genders.)
> 
> Oh. I read it as anon saying “escape Rowena’s spell” meaning the one placed on Cas. With the cure for himself being a second, and adjacent goal but only once he realized he couldn’t teleport in Marn. Rowena’s spell hit both the meatsuit and Crowley’s demonic construct, just one stronger than the other, since Crowley managed to move the meatsuit some, but couldn’t use his powers any. The whole thing showed its possible to affect an angel/demon from one meatsuit and have it carry. Might be relevant later (with the Darkness and Dean), might not. Not disputing the last.

Oh my! Based on your comment about how Crowley was able to escape his meatsuit but in doing so he left some of his powers behind, I’m wondering if that’s something about Rowena’s magic that wasn’t (at that time, who knows what’s happened to it now that the Darkness is on the loose), able to touch the “non-human” parts of her victims. With regard to how Rowena’s attack dog spell is affecting Cas, similarly to how Crowley wasn’t completely subjected to the immobilization spell, he’s not succumbing to it completely like previous human victims of the spell did. So whatever parts of Cas are affected by the spell are at odds with the parts that aren’t right now.

With regard to gender, I agree with the comment above that since demons were once human, they would show their human preference for gender when choosing meatsuits (other than in emergency situations or for matters of convenience. Great, now I’m picturing a delivery man ringing the doorbell but oops the demon was in the shower, so he grabs the nearest meatsuit to hand to cover up with in order to answer the door pffft). Crowley himself has occupied Linda Tran for a hot minute back in 8.02, so him presenting as female in a pinch is nothing new. Obviously some humans view their own gender identity in different ways, so I assume those feelings about how they identify would transfer to which vessels they would choose.

We already know Cas is “utterly indifferent to sexual orientation,” as an angel. It’s not a far stretch to assume that would cover gender identity as well. The only way for most humans to perceive angels without burnt eyeballs and shattered eardrums (or worse) is when they take a vessel. Cas himself didn’t seem bothered by the idea of taking Claire as his vessel as opposed to Jimmy. Raphael and Hannah have both switched genders without any of the other angels batting an eyelash. I really think they are indifferent here, barring future canon telling us otherwise.

Well, with the possible exception of Anna (who had her human body recreated after she angeled-up again, presumably for nostalgic reasons), and Castiel, who’s been alone in Jimmy’s body for more than six years now and probably feels as if it is his own and has come to identify with it, especially after having lived in it as a human himself.

The last time Cas had to leave his vessel that we know of, when he carved the angel banishing sigil into his chest and blew five angels out of the Beautiful Room warehouse back in S5, he appeared a thousand miles away, unconscious. At the hospital he was taken to, his vessel was barely functioning, maintaining enough to keep itself alive, but he was nearly declared brain dead until the angel portion of himself recovered from the effects of the banishment to come back online. And then, when it did, he was all but human, his powers dwindled to next to nothing. Any cure for the attack dog spell will have to take that into account. I don’t think they’ll have him jumping bodies willy-nilly like Crowley does.

[spn 11.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.01) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)

 

[Mar 1, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/140314220750/what-if-lucifers-point-in-talking-to-sam-was)

193 notes

**[tesslucetram](https://tesslucetram.tumblr.com/) asked: What if Lucifer's point in talking to Sam was never to get to Sam at all, but to get to Castiel? Luci is NOT stupid. He knew that getting to Sam would mean that Dean would intercede, which meant Cas would intercede. Sam is really no longer an acceptable vessel for Luci. He hasn't been drinking demon blood, so even he would be in danger of disintegrating. But Cas is an ANGEL. The only angel who owns his own body, as a matter of fact. He is capable of consent. No other angel is.**

[winjennster](https://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/140311718449/what-if-lucifers-point-in-talking-to-sam-was):

> Whoa…that is some deep shit. It’s an amazing theory. [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg), check this out - I think this person is on to something and you’re better at this than I am.
> 
> But yeah - that does make sense. Luci using Cas to get to Dean? Easy. Wow. I never even thought about that!

 

That had occurred to me, too. I wondered how many other people outside the Cage Lucifer had been in contact with since the Darkness breaking free cracked it open. Sam, obviously. But also Rowena. Someone gave him the update on who the players are in the current situation, enough that he was able to manipulate events to his liking.

It could’ve been entirely from Sam’s prayers, and the “direct line” 5.03 established between an angel and his vessel (that Cas was able to call Raphael down via his empty vessel). Sam might not even have had to actively pray for Lucifer to dial in to his thoughts, etc. Hence how he even knew to contact Rowena in the first place.

But then there’s the flip side, Amara carving “I AM COMING” on to Cas. It was speculated a bit that the message was possibly for Lucifer, since after carving it she zapped him to Hell’s front door, you know? She possibly zapped him to the last known location where Dean had been on Earth, but it’s never clarified. It could’ve been intended for Dean, or Crowley, or God, even. Since she knew that Cas was “God’s favorite” or whatever it was that she gleaned from eating Ambriel’s grace. So potentially she could’ve intended that message to go straight to God.

But, there’s a precedent for messages addressed to God to wind up in Lucifer’s inbox this season.

Knowing Cas’s “special” situation, being an angel in a custom-made-by-god vessel may look like the Cadillac (or Lincoln hehe) of vessels.

And ALSO, if Lucifer’s been able to dreamwalk through Sam and Rowena’s dreams, has he also been able to hook into angel radio? Has he been gathering intelligence since the Darkness cracked his cage? He could’ve been setting a trap for Cas all along.

Even when he was at the bunker with Sam in 11.14, he could’ve held rescuing Dean over Sam’s head, a bargaining chip for getting another crack at getting Sam to say yes, but he didn’t. He seemed perfectly content to stay in Cas, at least for now.

[casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F) [spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [lucifer (the one on spn-- not my kid)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn---not-my-kid%29) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F)


	49. Chapter 49

a[ug 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149718788945/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think)

1,162 notes

**Anonymous asked: I like the idea of destiel, but sometimes I think about the fact that Cas is in some guys body and it makes me like it less. I know Jimmy's not in there, but using someone else's body for so much seems a little wrong to me. It also makes me like Cas a little less. Is this just me?**

[tenoko1](http://tenoko1.tumblr.com/post/149707082288/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):

 

> [somekindofsaviour](http://somekindofsaviour.tumblr.com/post/149706166252/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
> 
>  
>
>> [obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/149671926532/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
>> 
>>  
>>
>>> [spadeart](http://spadeart.tumblr.com/post/149585838307/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
>>> 
>>>  
>>>
>>>> [tatltaelfairies](http://tatltaelfairies.tumblr.com/post/149510866070/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149489753510/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>>> [cloudatlascas](http://cloudatlascas.tumblr.com/post/149485548524/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>  
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes. This. But the first time Cas got blown up that completely was in 4.22, in Chuck’s kitchen by Raphael and company. “I’ll hold them off, I’ll hold them all off.” That’s actually when Jimmy died and Chuck (we now know for sure) resurrected him in a newly-minted vessel created to be identical to Jimmy’s. He got blown up again in 5.22, and poor Chuck had to reassemble him again. He exploded for a third time at the beginning of 7.02 when the Leviathan walked him into that lake.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> That hasn’t even been Jimmy’s body for his two most recent explosions.
>>>>> 
>>>>> [the show put forth the theory that it was god himself who brought cas back](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-show-put-forth-the-theory-that-it-was-god-himself-to-brought-cas-back) [and now we have it confirmed from god himself](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-we-have-it-confirmed-from-god-himself) [but what cemented it for me is that when cas banished himself along with four other angels outside the beautiful room](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-what-cemented-it-for-me-is-that-when-cas-banished-himself-along-with-four-other-angels-outside-the-beautiful-room) [in 5.18 and then calls dean in 5.21 to tell him how he’d landed unconscious on a fishing boat and was in the hospital](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/in-5.18-and-then-calls-dean-in-5.21-to-tell-him-how-he%27d-landed-unconscious-on-a-fishing-boat-and-was-in-the-hospital) [but he’d been declared brain dead before that BECAUSE THERE WAS NO OTHER SOUL INSIDE HIS VESSEL WITH HIM TO TAKE OVER THE REINS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-he%27d-been-declared-brain-dead-before-that-BECAUSE-THERE-WAS-NO-OTHER-SOUL-INSIDE-HIS-VESSEL-WITH-HIM-TO-TAKE-OVER-THE-REINS) [WHILE CAS REINTEGRATED HIMSELF WITH IT](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/WHILE-CAS-REINTEGRATED-HIMSELF-WITH-IT) [he couldn’t ask for consent from an unoccupied vessel which is why the angels didn’t just use dead bodies as vessels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-couldn%27t-ask-for-consent-from-an-unoccupied-vessel-which-is-why-the-angels-didn%27t-just-use-dead-bodies-as-vessels) [so whatever cas’s vessel is it’s definitely not just jimmy’s reanimated corpse it’s cas’s body](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-whatever-cas%27s-vessel-is-it%27s-definitely-not-just-jimmy%27s-reanimated-corpse-it%27s-cas%27s-body) (via [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149492753525/demondetoxmanual-sympathy-for-the-devil-gif))
>>>> 
>>>> And Lucifer couldn’t just take over that body either. Based on all of the above, and the fact that Cas was even *able* to give Lucifer permission to possess him? That is *Castiel’s* body, 100%, no one else.
>>>> 
>>>> Lucifer doesn’t even pause when Cas says yes, which makes me wonder if he could see just how different Cas is before that. Hadn’t Cas already been exploded and brought back the first time Lucifer first met him, after trapping him in the fire ring? (And how hilarious is it to say that, exploded *the first time*, like, how many times, omg) “What a peculiar thing you are,” Lucifer said, and he wasn’t just talking about showing up in a car with the Winchesters.
>>>> 
>>>> And can the other angels see it, and that’s part of why he throws them all so much? Not just his actions, or his words, or his reputation. But his physical presence, they can see and feel that he’s *different*.
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> ::flails:: Sorry, I have sooooo many emotions about Cas and that body, gaaaah. :)
>>> 
>>> YES THIS.
>> 
>> In 5.14 My Bloody Valentine, Cas says his hunger for meat is Jimmy’s - not his, which means Jimmy was put back in the body after 4.22. The archangel Cas talks about in 10.09 must refer to Lucifer.
>> 
>> I really wish Jimmy had died at 4.22 because the whole brothel business in 5.03 is  _really_  skeevy.
> 
> I think that’s why Cas sabotaged it. he just didn’t know how to tell Dean ‘no’.

reblobbing this AGAIN because of the implication that Cas was actually telling the whole truth in 5.14 about what was affecting him. He’s already acting kinda shady, when he says:

 

> DEAN Okay, but what about you? I mean, since when do angels secretly hunger for White Castle?  
>  CASTIEL It’s my vessel– Jimmy. His, uh, appetite for red meat has been touched by Famine’s effect.

He doesn’t say Jimmy’s still in there. Just that his physical vessel, which he described in 10.09 as a “reassembled” version of Jimmy’s body, was the source of the craving. Cas was also blatantly wrong about this:

 

> [aphony-cree](http://aphony-cree.tumblr.com/post/116092524844/i-like-the-idea-of-destiel-but-sometimes-i-think):
> 
>  
>
>> In  _Swan Song 5.22_  Jimmy’s body was destroyed so completely that not only did Jimmy go to heaven but Cas died too. Cas was then brought back to life and shoved into that body, bypassing all of the angelic rules of needing consent from a living soul to inhabit a vessel. 
>> 
>> Sam and Dean both died in season 5 and they were told that they would be brought back to life so they could say yes to Michael/Lucifer. Adam’s body was reconstructed and his soul shoved back inside so he could say yes to Michael. We saw in  _Rapture 4.20_  and  _Road Trip 9.10_  that if an angel gets expelled from a human vessel it needs to establish new consent to re-enter that vessel. So how is it that Cas is able to inhabit a human vessel without a human soul being present to give him permission?
>> 
>> The answer is that God resurrected Cas and shoved him inside of an empty vessel. How did Jimmy get that body in the first place? His soul was assigned that body (via God’s system) when his soul was created. God then re-assigned that body to Castiel after Jimmy had been sent to heaven.  That body has been 100% owned by Cas since the season 5 finale and it was given to him  _by God_. If Jimmy has rights to that vessel because God put his soul in it then you have to concede that Cas has equal rights to it because God put Cas into it.
> 
> CASTIEL Yeah. (eyes his empty fast food bad sadly)  
>  (Sam is still cooling off his face and neck by the sink , he breathes heavily trying to calm down)  
>  DEAN What are you, the Hamburglar?  
>  CASTIEL I’ve developed a taste for ground beef.  
>  DEAN Well, have you even tried to stop it?  
>  CASTIEL I’m an angel. I can stop anytime I want.

He clearly COULDN’T stop any time he wanted. Because it wasn’t JIMMY independently being affected by famine, it was CAS HIMSELF, the only occupant of a vessel he still thought of as Jimmy’s because ANGELS AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE IN EMPTY VESSELS. He had no understanding of WHY he wasn’t able to stop, of why he was so strongly affected by a being who shouldn’t have been able to do that to an angel.

And in 10.09 when Cas tells Claire that her father died when “an archangel” ripped him apart on a subatomic level, if he’d meant Lucifer, he would’ve just said Lucifer. He didn’t.

Namechecking Lucifer would’ve probably carried more weight with Claire than referencing some rando archangel did.

Because back in 4.22, we were never told the name of the archangel assigned to protect Chuck. We were just told it was “an archangel.” Hence the use of the same term in 10.09. We all assume it was Raphael, but we don’t know. (heck, for all we know there wasn’t an archangel at all, and it was just some contrivance of Chuck’s own doing to keep up appearances, but that’s a subject for another day.)

Cas spent all of s5 slowly losing his power after being “cut off” from heaven. He was practically human by the end, reduced to using a shotgun against the croatoan infected in 5.21. Which is the same episode Cas contacts Dean after banishing himself along with a group of other angels in 5.18 that I mentioned in my tags up there. JIMMY WAS ALREADY GONE BY 5.18 OR IT WOULD’VE BEEN JIMMY WHO WOKE UP IN THAT HOSPITAL BED. JIMMY HAD ALREADY LEFT THE CHRYSLER BUILDING AT THAT POINT.

So by that logic, Cas was either wildly in denial about what effect Famine seemed to be able to have over him because it would’ve been TERRIFYING to an angel to think they were that vulnerable and “human,” or he was too embarrassed to admit that he’d become so closely tied to his vessel that he was vulnerable to human needs and temptations. Because, again, he was feeling more and more useless and defeated by the day.

He was an anomaly. No other angel has ever been “alone” in a vessel before. It took him a LOT longer than that to start thinking of it as “my body.” in 10.09 he kind of verbally skirts around directly saying it’s his own body by saying “I was reassembled,” and going on to tell Claire that Jimmy was in heaven. It’s not until 11.23 where he FIRST refers to it as “my body,” and ONLY after he’s been used as a vessel by another angel. Not even when he was human and graceless did he really, truly accept that. He’s come to understand and accept his body, because he can’t really deny it anymore.

None of that contradicts the actually stated canon fact that being blown apart like that by an archangel results in the death of a vessel, and the first time that happened to Cas was in 4.22. 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [denial is a thing both for cas and everyone else who doesn't want to accept that cas hasn't actually been jimmy since 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/denial-is-a-thing-both-for-cas-and-everyone-else-who-doesn%27t-want-to-accept-that-cas-hasn%27t-actually-been-jimmy-since-4.22) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [i mean can you even imagine how hard that must've been for him to accept? that this body was all his?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-can-you-even-imagine-how-hard-that-must%27ve-been-for-him-to-accept%3F-that-this-body-was-all-his%3F) [and that he could be subjected to cravings of the flesh like some mortal human?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-that-he-could-be-subjected-to-cravings-of-the-flesh-like-some-mortal-human%3F) [OF COURSE HE FUCKING DENIED IT!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/OF-COURSE-HE-FUCKING-DENIED-IT%21) [billions of years old and never once had a freaking independent thought or desire of his own](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/billions-of-years-old-and-never-once-had-a-freaking-independent-thought-or-desire-of-his-own) [and suddenly he can feel things... emotions... doorways to doubt... and they're terrifying](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-suddenly-he-can-feel-things...-emotions...-doorways-to-doubt...-and-they%27re-terrifying) [so when put on the spot by dean in a tense situation the easiest thing is to deny deny deny despite the evidence we see to the contrary](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-when-put-on-the-spot-by-dean-in-a-tense-situation-the-easiest-thing-is-to-deny-deny-deny-despite-the-evidence-we-see-to-the-contrary) [he said he could stop any time BUT HE CLEARLY COULD NOT STOP ANY TIME](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-said-he-could-stop-any-time-BUT-HE-CLEARLY-COULD-NOT-STOP-ANY-TIME) [he was LYING because he was AFRAID](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-was-LYING-because-he-was-AFRAID)

 

[Oct 4, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151363157125/oh-wow-thank-you-for-that-explanation-of-jimmy)

12 notes

**Anonymous asked: Oh wow, thank you for that explanation of Jimmy and Cas. And you're right, the archangel comment definitely means it was at the end of season four. Good thing we have you to catch these things for us confused ones! I'm relieved, knowing Cas has been just Cas for so long. It was too weird reading fic of him in intimate situations thinking Jimmy was in there and so I've been avoiding earlier season ones and now I can read them. :D**

Thank you! :)

Yeah, I came late to fandom (around early s8), and I’d blasted through a bingewatch of the first 7 seasons to get caught up. And to me, it was always obvious that Jimmy was gone after 4.22. I was extremely weirded out by canon fic that had Jimmy lurking in Cas’s head, because to me, he was long gone.

I’ve read a few really excellent stories where Jimmy was still in there (and his consent is explicitly obtained if the stories involve anything physical).

But yeah, after 4.22 the biggest thing left of Jimmy was the tooth Chuck pulled out of his hair.

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [jimmy novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jimmy-novak) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)

 

[Oct 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151367787900/i-always-reserve-in-castiels-overall-makeup-the)

331 notes

# “I always reserve in Castiel’s overall makeup the fact that there is an aspect of him that is purely flesh and purely human, which can function as it did in an episode before as a real Achilles’ heel, when he started to eat meat, because he just loved red meat. He couldn’t stop himself.”

— Ben Edlund (May 6, 2011) in [Supernatural’s “Cliffhanger Is Deeply Involved With Castiel’s Fate”](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20110509063453%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.eonline.com%2Fuberblog%2Fwatch_with_kristin%2Fb240500_supernaturals_cliffhanger_deeply.html&t=ZjE0MTMwN2VjMjQ2N2Q4ZjcyNzRiMGE2MWQ5MGEzNzMxM2IwNTk3YSxWZ0NlcUZ2ZQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151367787900%2Fi-always-reserve-in-castiels-overall-makeup-the&m=1) (via [justanotheridijiton](http://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/))

 

[spn 5.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.14) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [see even ben edlund agrees](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/see-even-ben-edlund-agrees) [it was all part of cas's s5 fall into humanity](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it-was-all-part-of-cas%27s-s5-fall-into-humanity) [relevant to the anons i answered earlier](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/relevant-to-the-anons-i-answered-earlier) [about jimmy and cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/about-jimmy-and-cas) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [cas may not have wanted to admit it to himself back in s5 but by the end of s11 he's been through so much and had time to accept it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/cas-may-not-have-wanted-to-admit-it-to-himself-back-in-s5-but-by-the-end-of-s11-he%27s-been-through-so-much-and-had-time-to-accept-it)

 


	50. Chapter 50

[Oct 3, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/151305745045/wasnt-dean-also-possessed-by-the-soul-eater-in)

3 notes

**[casismybestfriend](https://casismybestfriend.tumblr.com/) asked: Wasn't Dean also possessed by the Soul Eater in 11.16? I think that might've been the first time he was possessed by something, but I'm not sure.**

Ooh hi! I remember writing something about this a while back… but yeah. Dean’s BODY was possessed by the Soul Eater so it could attack Sam, but Dean’s SOUL, aka the entirety of Dean’s consciousness and awareness, was trapped in the Soul Eater’s nest at the time. Only Dean’s entirely lifeless meatsuit was possessed. The Soul Eater wasn’t sharing Dean’s body with him at the time, and Dean wasn’t aware of the Soul Eater’s actions while his body was being borrowed that way.

So yes, his flesh was technically possessed, reanimated by the Soul Eater, but Dean wasn’t home at the time. And that makes this feel a little bit different from just a standard possession, you know?

Sam would’ve told Dean what happened after the fact, but unlike Sam while possessed by Gadreel or Meg, Dean had no personal first-hand memories of the events, because everything Dean was not present.

[spn 11.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.16) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [something something possession is nine tenths of the law blah blah](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/something-something-possession-is-nine-tenths-of-the-law-blah-blah) [spooky-spn](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spooky-spn)

 

 


	51. Chapter 51

[Feb 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157070538605/we-watched-in-1211-when-the-brother-of-the-dead)

7 notes

**Anonymous asked: We watched in 12.11 when the brother of the dead witch was trying to resurrect him through "soul swapping". After watching the 12.12 promo do you think this is foreshadowing how Cas is going to die and then the Winchesters will do the soul-swapping to bring him back? Interesting how there were three witch siblings right? Just like TFW? Does this mean there is a possibility Cas can soul-swap and use Dean or Sam as his vessel(maybe temporarily)?**

Well, I’ll start of by saying that I don’t think Cas is going to die… but okay…

A lot of S12 has been teaching us interesting new stuff about souls. Between Lily Sunder cannibalizing her own soul to work angelic magic to the creation of a nephilim with both a human soul and angel grace, to the state of Sam and Dean’s souls…

Calling back to s6 in about a hundred ways from Soulless!Sam to “It’s about the souls.”

Because what would the “soul swap” spell have accomplished? The dead brother’s soul in Sam’s living body, and Sam’s soul in the dead guy’s body… or in Heaven or wherever Sam’s soul is destined for, right?

Basically I read that as the intent to give Boyd Sam’s body.

Also, I think it’s more valuable to look to the past (ALL THE REFERENCES EVER!) than to assume what we’re seeing in the present is actually foreshadowing for the future. This season, like s11, is about subverting the past, and that’s what we’ve seen so far.

[spn 12.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.11) [s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [because that's essentially what they were intent on reducing sam's body to here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-that%27s-essentially-what-they-were-intent-on-reducing-sam%27s-body-to-here) [as a meatsuit for boyd's soul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/as-a-meatsuit-for-boyd%27s-soul)

 

[Jan 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170121338090/hello-whats-your-opinion-on-the-muitsuit-problem)

79 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hello! What's your opinion on the muitsuit problem - aka Sam and Dean killing tons of demons without a second thought?**

[thejabberwock](https://thejabberwock.tumblr.com/post/170118829307/hello-whats-your-opinion-on-the-muitsuit-problem):

>   
> 
> 
> It’s not something I’ve given much thought to, honestly, because it’s always a bit of a relief to me when the boys get the demon knife so we don’t have to sit through the repetitive exorcisms that take so long. Although I did appreciate the mass exorcism in Jus in Bello. And I don’t know if they don’t give it a second though, per se. It was, after all, Sam’s justification to himself (and probably sincerely meant in part) for why he was using the demon blood with Ruby 
> 
>   
>    
> 
> 
> And it was made pretty clear in 1.22 when Bobby told them exorcising Meg would also kill the human host (because of extensive injuries) that Dean thinks it’s more merciful to kill the vicitim than to let them suffer with the demon running the show
> 
> So, I don’t think it’s something they don’t think about, but it’s one of those things they’re not gonna stop and have exposition about every other episode, you know? Plus, hard decisions are part of the job with these two. 

 

Plus, they have seen A Lot™ since they first discovered there was a way to kill a demon. Even back in 3.12,  ~~Sheriff Dodd~~  (eta: wtf self, sheriff dodd was shot by Victor, it was the other FBI dude that was possessed I think… ugh) had been “dead” for a long time when the demon left his body, a phenomenon we see more and more frequently as the series progresses. Demons who’ve been in the same meatsuit so long they’ve taken MULTIPLE fatal wounds (such as the demons Abaddon recruits into new healthy vessels in 9.02, where Sam and Dean find their old meatsuits dead on the bus…).

Not to mention the psychological torment long-term victims of possession suffer, with the most extreme example probably being Jeffrey in 7.15 who WANTED “his demon” back and was driven to mass murder in order to get his wish. I mean… yikes.

The show even addressed this issue back in 11.06:

**DEMON** (laughing): I’m happy to keep gossiping with you boys, but you want actionable intelligence? Torture me if you want. I know you’ll just kill me anyway.  
 **DEAN** : Hmm. Well, it looks like a stalemate to me. I guess we go ahead and kill him right now.   
 **SAM** : No, no, no. Dean, wait. We can exorcise him.  
 **DEAN** : What? Save his meat suit.  
 **DEMON** : My two cents? You exorcise me, let me smoke on out of here, I give you my word not to tell Crowley.  
(Dean scoffs)  
 **DEMON** : Hey, you heard me. He’s hardly my favorite guy at the moment. I –  
 **SAM** : Wait a second. Shut up. (Sam walks over to the demon and pulls the top of the demons shirt to the side to reveal a bullet wound)  
 **DEAN** (smugly): Well, would you look at that.  
 **SAM** : There’s no way his suit survived that wound.

So, yeah, letting demons escape or exorcising them is only a temporary solution. Demon comes back in a new meatsuit, you know? Loads of meatsuits are dead already, most of the ones who survive will be traumatized for life, and the demon has effectively been freed to do the same thing to ANOTHER person? Not to mention sometimes they’ve got only moments to act before the demon hurts someone else, before it boops away and they lose it, or whatever. Yeah, I get why there’s a lot of circumstances where using the knife is maybe not a perfect option, but also one they can live with

[vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)

 

[Apr 3, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172571185935/about-the-whole-jensen-playing-cas-in-earth-2)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: about the whole Jensen playing Cas in earth 2 thing, wouldn't that mean that Dean would have to be in Jimmy novaks bloodline? & so hypothetically, if Dean and Cas in the real world ever did get together..wouldn't that be incest?**

Dean.. is also from a family of angel vessels?

Not every potential angel vessel is close kin of Jimmy Novak?

Is this like… deep diving for potential wank?

And we have no idea if Jensen is playing the AU version of Cas. That’s just one among dozens of theories I’ve seen going around. But Dean’s got archangel vessel bloodlines from both the Winchester and Campbell sides of his family. I don’t think he’d have any problems containing a less powerful angel than Michael, you know?

It’s not as if Cas only had Jimmy Novak or Claire Novak to pick as a potential vessel. It’s not a “specific families are linked to specific angels” sort of thing, but something about the bloodlines of multiple different families that makes them capable of being vessels to ANY angel. At least, the show has never implied that only certain angels could take certain families as vessels. I mean we’ve seen Hannah, for example, use two different humans for her vessels, and they were clearly not closely related. Nor was Sam closely related to Gadreel’s other vessel. I mean… this is some wild kind of assumption here.

The angel fall event, and all the angels attempting to secure vessels quickly beginning in 9.01 demonstrated that some vessels are far less suited, far less durable, while still being adequate for temporarily housing an angel (like Hael’s vessel was already disintegrating), but she wanted Cas’s vessel for her own because his body is particularly strong– whether that’s a factor of having been Jimmy Novak’s body or the fact that Cas’s body has been specially rebuilt by god on multiple occasions SPECIFICALLY for Castiel…

I mean, Chuck rebuilt him at least three times from the atoms up (after 4.22, after 5.22, and after 7.02). Cas is built of special stuff for an angel vessel.

So… no. You can untwist that bit of pretzel logic there. Not incest. They’re no more related than any other two people with whatever it is that makes people capable of being angel vessels.

[vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [i read headcanons like yours in fic sometimes and it's just... fine in fic but whoa so not canon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-read-headcanons-like-yours-in-fic-sometimes-and-it%27s-just...-fine-in-fic-but-whoa-so-not-canon) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[May 15, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173916334585/oooh-you-know-what-id-love-an-ep-where-they-show)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: oooh you know what id love? an ep where they show us exactly how cas got "careless" with his 1901 vessel, how he ended up losing it. did he just stop possessing her all of a sudden? or did she like accidentally explode when cas had the celestial equivalent of a sneeze? inquiring minds want to know!**

I was under the impression that as soon as that mission was over in 1901 he… left? Went back to Heaven? Let her go? Because the angels weren’t supposed to be just taking random vessels and hanging around on Earth, you know?

At least, that’s always been my impression.

The whole thing with Lily Sunder only started because she literally summoned Ishim, and he presumably took a vessel to appear before her. And everything that happened after that was about Ishim getting pissy because he was friendzoned or whatever.

Yeah, Benjamin was the exception who’d apparently been in love with his vessel and had a very different relationship with her than most angels have with their vessels, but I think he was the exception and not the rule. Why any of those other angels actually retained their vessels beyond that mission is what baffled me.

So rather than ask what happened to Castiel’s vessel, I’d rather know why the others (aside from Benjamin) continued to occupy the same vessels when they’d been essentially ordered to watch over the Earth, not interact, you know?

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[May 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174040491000/im-not-disputing-that-deans-words-could-be)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm not disputing that Dean's words could be interpreted differently by Michael. I just don't think the supernatural forces that require angels to get permission would have optional time limits or variable conditions. The rule is the angel needs permission to possess someone. Once the angel is in, then they're in, unless they're consciously ejected. I think Dean was just hoping Michael would hold up his end, cuz there is nothing in the Permission For Possession rule that would force him out.**

Yeah, Dean had to trust that Michael wouldn’t betray their arrangement, but you’re asking me to speculate on a scene we really don’t have. We didn’t see Dean say yes, or any of their agreement that Dean described with the word “deal.” At least, not beyond his single hasty statement on a tentative agreement, you know? Was that the entirety of his “deal?” We’re gonna have to wait and see if we’re ever shown any more of that scene in s14.

But for a second, let’s focus on the “deal.” Because again, this is semantics. Because on Supernatural, when you hear the word “deal,” you typically think DEMONS and not ANGELS.

When Crowley made a deal, you could at least count on him to stick to the letter of the arrangement. If you didn’t see the loophole, that’s not his problem. But If he said he’d do something, he would. Most demons would, and Crowley used to crack down on demons who violated their deals (7.08). Hell has integrity, at least.

But… not so much with angels. I mean, remember Zachariah? My favorite thing to quote:

ZACHARIAH: Lilith’s going to break the final seal. Fait accompli at this point. Train’s left the station.  
DEAN: But me and Sam, we can stop… (he cuts off, having an epiphany) You don’t want to stop it, do you?  
ZACHARIAH: Nope. Never did. The end is nigh. The apocalypse is coming, kiddo, to a theater near you.  
DEAN: What was all that crap about saving seals?  
ZACHARIAH: Our grunts on the ground – we couldn’t just tell them the whole truth. We’d have a full-scale rebellion on our hands. I mean, think about it. Would we really let 65 seals get broken unless senior management wanted it that way?  
DEAN: But why?  
ZACHARIAH: Why not? The apocalypse? Poor name, bad marketing – puts people off. When all it is is Ali/Foreman. On a… slightly larger scale. And we like our chances. When our side wins – and we will – it’s paradise on earth. Now, what’s not to like about that?

Never trust an angel. Well, other than Cas, and there was that one time that Cas deceived and betrayed everyone for a year (which he reminds Sam of with those exact words in 9.11). I mean… Dean honestly knows better, especially after the buildup throughout s13 of just how HORRIFIC AU Michael is, how determined he is to do to our world what he did to his own world– the evidence of which Dean has seen with his own eyes.

This was the angel who tortured Mary.

And in order to stop Lucifer, Dean said yes to him.

There was some emotional compromise happening here.

But he did think they’d had a deal. He did think that– for whatever reason in that moment he agreed to this– that Michael was either weak enough or desperate enough to honor whatever deal he struck.

Thing is, when an angel gets what it wants, it doesn’t just hand it back without a fight.

So yeah, there’s no automatic clause in standard Angel Possessions. But don’t for one second think that Dean actually agreed to be Michael’s permanent vessel. He just got screwed in the deal.

[spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [spn 7.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.08) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle)

 

[May 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174093941745/hey-please-ignore-this-if-its-been-talked-about)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey! Please ignore this if it's been talked about before, but if in the AU world Dean was never born, how can our Dean be the perfect vessel for AU!Michael...? (Btw, completely random fun fact: 'Dinkel' is the German word for 'spelt' ;-D)**

Just because Dean was never born in that world doesn’t mean he still isn’t the perfect vessel for Michael there… it has to do with the bloodlines, or whatever.

This is why I wished we’d learned more about the metaphysics of the AU, of how their apocalypse actually went down without Sam and Dean, why the angels didn’t push harder to MAKE Sam and Dean happen in that world, you know?

The Winchesters’ entire lives (including Mary and John’s) were completely manipulated by heaven just so that Sam and Dean would specifically be born for that purpose. Why Michael could’ve known about the existence of Dean Winchester who was never born in his world at all is still a mystery.

Perhaps this was part of the deal/plan that Lucifer had outlined to AU Michael, about the “differences” in their universes, and who exactly Sam and Dean Winchester are in *his* universe, you know? Kind of a list of handy pointers to keep in mind about his universe for Michael to bear in mind. Tangling with Winchesters always seems to prove tricksy, and Lucifer would likely warn Michael to be wary of them. Anyone who underestimates a Winchester has a nasty habit of ending up dead or worse because of it.

tl;dr? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

(and oh gosh, do you mean spelt as in the grain, or spelt as in “this arrangement of letters forms this specific word?”… nvm I remembered that google was a thing and YOU MEANT THE GRAIN! AAAAHHHHHH okay, I just went and read the whole wikipedia article about the history of spelt and I’m gonna go stare out the window for a while and contemplate dinkle, that self-sacrificing loaf of healthy damn bread okay?)

[the war world](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-war-world) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits)

 

[May 22, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174152237390/oooh-what-if-in-his-mind-dean-retreats-to-the-dean)

47 notes

**Anonymous asked: oooh what if in his mind dean retreats to the dean cave**

That was one thought I had… >.>

But what if Dean doesn’t “retreat” at all? I mean, compared to the other cases of angel possession we have, Dean’s circumstance is kind of unique, you know?

Let’s go all the way back to 4.20, when we learned what it was like to be Castiel’s vessel:

**SAM** : You remember anything about being possessed? Anything at all?   
 **JIMMY** : Yeah, bits and pieces. I mean, angel inside of you, it’s kinda like being chained to a comet.   
 **DEAN** : Ah, that doesn’t sound like much fun.   
 **JIMMY** : Understatement. 

But in the same episode we also get confirmation of what Cas had told Dean in 4.01, that Jimmy had been a devout man who’d actually prayed for that. He went in to this entire deal with the knowledge that he was essentially surrendering himself and his body for Castiel to use. He agreed to it, and aside from a few glimpses here and there, he was resigned to what happened to him while he was possessed. He agreed, and he submitted willingly.

(short digression to also remind people that Jimmy “had a deal” with Cas, that Cas would guarantee the safety of his family in exchange for the use of his body. And Cas? yeah he didn’t quite live up to the letter of that deal, considering the events of 4.20… which he later did much to repent for with Claire, but was clear that he’d always regretted failing on… but it also sets up the standard reminder that angels aren’t operating under the same set of cosmic rules as demons. Sure they need “consent” to possess their vessels, but it need not be INFORMED consent, and they feel little obligation to live up to any of the other conditions their vessels outline in their agreements. Okay, moving on now…)

Fast forward to Sam’s initial experiences as Lucifer’s vessel in 5.22. Lucifer spent a considerable amount of time “visiting” with Sam, trying to “win Sam over” to his way of thinking, by showing him a This Is Your Life sort of montage demonstrating the inevitability of Sam’s destiny playing out through the apocalypse:

**Lucifer:**  I’m inside your grapefruit, Sam. You can’t lie to me. I see it all – how odd you always felt, how… out of place in that… family of yours. And why shouldn’t you have? They were foster care – at best. I’m your real family.

And just *shudders*.

And we know that Sam was able to take back control, because that had been his goal going in and saying yes in the first place. It just took longer than he’d initially hoped to do so. But Sam was fighting against him the entire time– not under the hope of being able to eject Lucifer from his body, but in hopes of being able to physically jump into the pit and drag Lucifer with him. Mission accomplished, but it took some major doing.

We next have Sam fighting against a possession of an entirely different sort. In 9.01 the way he consents to possession is… entirely dubious. The angel possessing him specifically erases any memory Sam had of consenting, of possession, of any of it. So Sam was already operating at a disadvantage. It’s yet another example of angels “not honoring deals” when it suits their own needs, as well. Any time Dean tried to make Sam’s possession known to Sam, Gadreel conveniently took over, or erased Sam’s memory, or otherwise manipulated the situation. When Gadreel took Sam over completely in 9.09, he explicitly kept Sam trapped in a sort of psychic bubble universe that was real enough for Sam to believe it was actually real. Even if it’s kind of laughable on the surface of it, Sam just didn’t have the actual ~awareness~ of being possessed in the first place that would’ve given him the ammunition to even question that something seemed off about it all.

When he finally does regain control enough (through Crowley’s explicitly laying out the facts for him inside his little vision world) to eject Gadreel, Sam talks about having some memories of what happened during the time that Gadreel had been in control– killing Kevin, specifically. But Sam had spent most of his time possessed with Gadreel willingly letting Sam sit in the Driver’s Seat, and largely staying hidden.

Then we have Cas agreeing to possession by Lucifer in 11.10. From a place of abject depression and feelings of like… zero self-worth… Cas believed that Lucifer might be the only one who could stop the Darkness, and willingly agreed to be his vessel. He metaphorically sank into his own little world, holing himself up in the bunker’s kitchen and feeling increasingly useless and worthless once Lucifer locked him down… after that one time Cas fought his way to the surface in order to save Sam’s life in 11.14. When Dean tried a repeat of 9.10 to reach Cas and beg him to eject Lucifer, Cas was unable to break himself out of that pit of despair to listen. And then it was too late when Amara showed up and hauled Lucifer (and by Lucifer I mean Cas) off to torture him…

But the point is that Cas DID consent to that possession, and the only reason he fought against it was to save Sam’s life, and the main reason he allowed Lucifer to take over again after that was because Lucifer was the only one with the power to save Dean’s life on that sub. Oh the tragedy of it all.

But Dean? Now? He went into this willingly, believing he had a “deal” with Michael for one specific mission. He actively felt Michael breaking that deal and taking control. I can’t imagine that Dean would just… go willingly into that, you know? So while he may occasionally feel shoved down into complacency, I truly hope that we’ll see Dean continuing to fight in there, and not just “forgetting” what happened.

And heck, I just watched 3.10. And I watched 2.20 a few days ago. And I made a post about 10.19 the other day. We’ve had a few episodes where we’ve gotten really good looks inside Dean’s head, but it has been a while. I mean, yeah, things like 12.11 gave us a bit of roundabout insight into Dean, but in a painfully indirect way, through the exposition of the LOSS of his memories, and not a sort of direct confrontation WITH his memories.

I am positively on the edge of my seat with anticipation of some excellent exposition on The State Of The Dean in s14. :D

[spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22)[spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [spn 3.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.10) [spn 2.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.20) [spn 10.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.19) [spn 12.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.11)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Jun 4, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174571758145/oh-no-im-watching-tnt-and-in-free-to-be-you-and)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: Oh no! I’m watching TNT and in Free to be You and Me, I’m reminded that Raphael left his vessel Donny in a catatonic state and Cas said it would be worse if Michael took him over. In the later episode Young Michael said he wouldn’t leave Dean like that. But since this is AU Michael and we know he can’t be trusted with a deal, I wonder if Show will remember how in danger Dean could be?**

Hmm. I mean, I suppose the condition of Michael’s now-abandoned AU vessel could potentially provide some insight… but the again, maybe not. Or at least not a completely 1:1 comparison, you know? Because right before Dean said yes, and basically the entire reason he even offered himself as Michael’s vessel, was because of how Jack had “injured” him.

Which raises some other interesting questions…

It seems implied that whatever injury Michael suffered that left him “weakened” and prompted Dean’s offer was “healed” by Michael occupying Dean’s healthy vessel. Or at least that’s what Michael implied would be the case if Dean said yes to him.

And the reality of that seems to have panned out during Dean’s fight with Lucifer. Then again,  _Michael_  wasn’t the one technically fighting Luci there. Dean was in the “driver’s seat.” Sure, he was tapping in to Michael’s angel mojo, but theoretically the fighting part was all on Dean (with an assist from Sam handing him the archangel blade at the exact right moment).

That in itself bodes well for Dean, compared to other archangel vessels. Dean’s got a lifetime of battle preparedness, including multiple resurrections, time served in Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, and more than his fair share of experience with defeating opponents through sheer acts of will, you know? He hasn’t spent his life ignorant of the supernatural, going about his business sheltered from the reality of this stuff, you know? He’s more prepared than your average vessel.

I’m interested to discover if the AU vessel even survived Michael leaving his body. And if so, is he catatonic? Did Cas heal him? Will he prove useful in providing information or insight to Sam and Cas? Or did he succumb to his injuries (or perhaps he was already an “empty vessel” the way Cas has occupied his otherwise empty vessel all these years)? And if that’s the case, it makes me wonder if that was also the case with Raphael’s vessel in 5.03. It would explain his state in that episode, since the only other similar situation we have to compare it to was Cas’s state after his self-banishing in 5.18… when the doctors had declared him brain dead before he made his way back into his body.

I’m personally looking forward to seeing how they handle this, regarding which direction they take this. :)

[spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [raphael](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/raphael) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Nov 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180313145720/the-colt-wasnt-fatal-to-lucifer-so-why-would-it)

13 notes

**[li-izumi](http://li-izumi.tumblr.com/) asked: The Colt wasn't fatal to Lucifer, so why would it kill Nick? That makes no sense people! As you said, being stabbed in the heart didn't kill Jimmy (because it was nothing to Cas). What killed Jimmy was the same thing as what killed Cas: being blown up by archangel. What prolly killed Nick was having Lucifer leave. Lucifer was doing all he could to keep his body together and holding him while waiting for Sam to say yes. but once Luci left? No healing. He prolly sickened and died fast. (1/2)**

I could see Crowley slipping in and taking both the dead Nick body and grabbing Nick’s soul for ‘in case’. Crowley is smart and he gathers tools around him that could be useful later. A discarded Lucifer meatsuit might have uses. And it turns out, many years down the road, it did. Crowley was gathering all sorts of interesting toys long before he became the King.  
  


Yeah, I think we were shown what happens when Lucifer leaves a failing vessel in 12.07, when he left Vince Vincente. I assume something similar happened to Nick. And we know Crowley has the power of witchcraft (like Rowena), including being able to “repair” otherwise uninhabitable meatsuits. 

And as an aside, we also know he had the power to restore souls from Hell into long-dead humans, as he did with Samuel Campbell… (yes Samuel originally said he was pulled down from Heaven when Sam was raised from Hell, but in 6.20, Crowley says, “ I know of a certain big, bald patriarch I can take off the bench,” heavily implying that Samuel had been in Hell.) So if Nick’s soul is actually in there– and again, ewwww, that’s a sick thing to do to a human soul, and I’d been thinking since we learned what Crowley did to Nick’s vessel– essentially forcing Lucifer into it– that Nick’s soul was long gone (whether in Heaven or in Hell, I have no idea, but yiiiiiikes… I honestly hope he’s soulless…)

And yep, Crowley was a hoarder. If something could be potentially useful to him, he made sure to stuff it in a warehouse somewhere– be it magical weapons or kraken essence, you never know when something might come in handy.

And an empty vessel? Yeah, that’s what 4.20 was all about, you know? Just how badly Hell would want to get their hands on an empty angel vessel…

**JIMMY** : I’m telling you, I don’t know anything.  
 **DEAN** : I don’t think they’re inclined to believe you.  
 **SAM** : And even if they did, you’re a vessel. They’re still gonna wanna know what makes you tick.  
 **DEAN** : Which means vivisection, if they’re feeling generous. 

So, yeah, if nothing else, they absolutely would’ve been interested in understanding what made Lucifer’s vessel tick. Never know what kind of interesting things someone with magical abilities could learn from studying something like that.

[spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn 12.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.07) [vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [nick the possibly murderous vessel of lucifer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nick-the-possibly-murderous-vessel-of-lucifer) [li izumi](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/li-izumi)

 

[Nov 23, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180418292385/hello-may-i-ask-whats-your-take-on-sam-and-dean)

31 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hello! May I ask what's your take on Sam and Dean always killing demons instead of using exorcism (unless it's somebody they care about)? Love your blog btw <3**

Hey hi! And thank you! I do my best :)

I think they have attempted to demonstrate a shift over the years. In early days, demons were an exceedingly rare thing. In 1.04, they were a huge, scary “way above our pay grade” entity that they had practically no experience dealing with. They couldn’t even identify the demon without the “Christo,” you know? Noobs. :P

It became clear early in s2 when they were talking with Bobby– who they first approached as a demon expert in 1.22– that this was all about to change. from 1.22:

**Bobby:**  Normal year, I hear of, say, three demonic possessions. Maybe four, tops.  
 **Dean:**  Yeah?  
 **Bobby:**  This year I hear of 27 so far. You get what I’m saying? More and more demons are walking among us – a lot more.  
 **Sam:**  Do you know why?  
 **Bobby:** No, but I know it’s something big. The storm’s coming, and you boys, your daddy – you are smack in the middle of it.

And this was back when they had no idea they even COULD kill a demon. They didn’t have Ruby’s knife yet, they didn’t even know angels existed let alone have their own handy angel blades, and they had literally ONE bullet left of the original Colt which they were saving for Azazel… There wasn’t much they could do to actually kill most demons…

We know the demon problem only escalated after that, and then escalated even more dramatically after 2.22 when the hell gate was opened. After that, in the buildup to the Apocalypse, more and more demons flooded the Earth, whether as Lilith’s henchmen, or later on the orders of some of the Horsemen or once Lucifer was freed. The world, in the aftermath of all that, is a very different place.

Under Crowley’s leadership, Hell became basically a corporate entity, doing business through souls acquisition and closing deals, and the nature of most demon interactions on Earth shifted from General Mayhem to keeping the demons in line more as employees of the Hell Machine, you know? But there were still plenty of demons quietly running around doing their own thing, or else working for other demons who’d try to keep them off hunter radar for the most part.

But what did exorcisms really do? I mean, in a pinch, they do help the immediate situation, but those demons come right back, you know? Or at least, they come back sooner or later, only to possess someone else.

Like, think of Jeffrey in 7.15, and his demon he wanted to possess him again. He’d been exorcised several years earlier, but when his demon came back, it didn’t want to possess HIM anymore. It wanted to possess and break someone new. Or, perhaps, most famously, Meg. They tried to exorcise her at least three times (1.22, 2.14 where she escaped before they could finish the exorcism, and in 5.01 she flees again before Dean can outright kill her).

In 12.06, they chose to exorcise Jael because he was possessing their friend, despite the fact that several of them were armed with weapons that could’ve killed Jael outright, AND the fact that Jael had been exorcised several times before by Asa Fox. Exorcising him instead of killing him, they knew he would eventually pop back up and will go back to doing what he’d always done– possessing people and killing them. But Jael had WANTED to hurt them, to force them to try and kill their loved ones. That’s his MO. So instead, they saved all their friends, working together to exorcise Jael from Jody. He was also a powerful enough demon to physically control half a dozen other hunters and keep them pinned down so they couldn’t just stab him with the demon knife or an angel blade. So exorcism was their “we’ll all survive to fight another day” strategy there.

And they haven’t really dealt with an awful lot of demons since then, you know? They dealt with the remaining Yellow Eyed Demons in s12– Ramiel and Dagon, and then Asmodeus in s13, but aside from Kip and his minions in 14.01, their demon interactions have been really rare.

And when dealing with Big Bad Demons who are nigh on invulnerable to standard methods of exorcism or killing, it becomes a “whatever works to end this threat” situation. It’s kill or be killed when fighting something like Ramiel or Dagon, you know? Not exactly the sorts of scenarios where they have time to get precious worrying about saving the meatsuit.

Sometimes ending the bad thing before it hurts even MORE people (or ends THEM) takes precedence. Whether it’s exorcism to save people in that moment or killing the thing (and potentially the person it’s possessing) that happens to be the best option in each instance is something they’ve had to accept since their first exorcism.

But going all the way back to early days, we began to learn that the humans didn’t always survive their possession, you know? Famously, in 3.12 the first demon they encountered in the prison cell had been possessing someone who was LONG dead. Then we had Abaddon’s soldier demons abandoning their own long-dead meatsuits on a bus in 9.02, and Sam and Dean capture several more demons for interrogation who are the only thing keeping their otherwise dead meatsuits alive. I mean, going all the way back to Meg in 1.22, they know that the chances they can actually save someone who’s been possessed are in no way guaranteed.

And like they said about Meg in 1.22…

**Dean** : Sam, there’s an innocent girl trapped somewhere in there. We’ve go to help her.  
 **Bobby** (comes up to them): You’re gonna kill her.  
 **Dean** : What?  
 **Bobby** : You said she fell from a building. That girl’s body is broken. The only thing keeping her alive is that demon inside. You exorcise it – that girl is going to die.  
 **Dean** : Listen to me, both of you, we are not gonna leave her like that.  
 **Bobby** : She is a human being.  
 **Dean** : And we’re gonna put her out of her misery. Sam, finish it.

As for Sam’s idealistic approach to saving meatsuits by using his psychic powers under Ruby’s tutelage in s4, it was a strategic part of her overall deception. It played into Sam’s sense of idealism, giving him a reason to continue to trust her, to continue to develop his powers, to continue to lie to Dean, to keep him isolated and more and more dependent on Ruby and his demon-blood-given powers. It was a lie, a manipulation, meant to make Ruby and her ever-increasing control over Sam seem like a  _good_  thing. It was not a good thing.

I just realized I’ve been working on this reply for the last three hours (while continuously being distracted due to real life) and I can’t even remember what you’d initially asked… I’m scared to scroll up and see just how long this has gotten… D:

(scrolls up)

Yep, it’s as rambling and tangent-filled as I feared…

I guess the tl:dr here is it’s one huge murky grey area of morality, and they’ve come to accept the fact they literally can’t save everyone, despite doing their best to save as many people as they can.

[vessels and meatsuits](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/vessels-and-meatsuits) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [spn 1.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.22) [spn 2.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.14) [spn s4](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s4) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22)[spn 2.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.22) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 7.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.15) [spn 12.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.06) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 3.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.12) [spn 9.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.02) [morality isn't just black and white like this especially where emotions are involved](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/morality-isn%27t-just-black-and-white-like-this-especially-where-emotions-are-involved) [still can't remember my proper grey area tag...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/still-can%27t-remember-my-proper-grey-area-tag...) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 


	52. Chapter 52

[Oct 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152523825550/i-dont-get-some-things-rn-does-mary-remember-her)

8 notes

**Anonymous asked: I dont get some things rn: Does Mary remember her heaven or not? I thought in the first ep she said she didnt? But last ep she described it.. also do her and John share heaven or not? I saw some people thingk she implied it this week but I dont see it, she talked John AND Sam, Dean being her heaven and if John were her soulmate she'd know the future cause like Jimmy/Amelia they can exchange information being more than just memories.**

Hi there!

I’m not sure if what Mary said there was an actual “description” of her heaven, but she’s been reading the journal, and I’d bet money that there’s at least a few pages in there about heaven and what Sam and Dean have learned about it.

I know a lot of folks believe that Mary and John are soulmates, just based on the fact that they were paired up by cupids. But to me that is just so horrifyingly icky a thought, given their obvious marital difficulties and the fact that in Dean’s heaven it was made clear that John and Mary had even split up for a time, even if it was just a few days. Dean’s line about how their marriage was only “perfect” after Mary died and John was able to elevate her memory to sainted status just seems to confirm, at least for me, that they were most definitely not soul mates.

I mean, if your 4-year-old can tell you’re having trouble, you’re probably having trouble.

And Mary DID state in 12.01 that she didn’t recall anything after she burned. But what she did recall was her life before that, her family, her children. If she understands that heaven is a place where you relive your happiest memories, and  _these_  are what she considers her happiest memories, perhaps she’s just making that  _assumption_  that that’s what she was reliving in Heaven for the last 33 years.

Because that may even have been what Dean outright told her when she pondered where she may have been for the last 33 years, you know? If he’d insisted she’d been in Heaven, she may have come back with something like, “Well, that is a nice thought, but…” And I’m sure Dean would’ve taken the opportunity to explain that no, Heaven is a real place and it’s basically happyland 24/7.

I just… maybe she even had a vague sort of gut instinct about it? I don’t know. But I, personally, am convinced that even if there was a version of John in her heaven, it wasn’t the real, actual John. Just like the Sam and Dean in her heaven were not the real, actual Sam and Dean. Since, you know, they’re both still alive.

And what you said about Jimmy and Amelia, how Amelia was able to tell Jimmy about what had happened since his death, yes 100%. If John had been in Heaven with Mary, he would’ve had a lot of esplainin to do. Most people in heaven don’t even seem to realize they’re in heaven, you know? They just go along for the ride. Bobby sitting in his heaven reading a book, listening to music, relaxing in his chair, until something OUTSIDE their heaven breaks into the memories. All the surly Bobbies wandering out into the hall in a state of confusion… while Jimmy and Amelia seemed aware of their situation, and were just happy to be reunited, rather than living out past memories they were able to make new ones together.

And that doesn’t seem to have happened with Mary. I think the comment about her “heaven” was more about her theory as to what she’d been pulled from before she died in the fire. THAT was what she pictures her “heaven” being. The white picket fence life she’d carved out for herself before a demon stole it all from her. I can’t resolve that (at least not from what we’ve learned so far this season) with her actually remembering what happened to her between November 2, 1983 and the present when she appeared in that park.

Maybe as the season progresses we’ll discover that she actually does have some very real memories of heaven, but I don’t even think it’s pertinent to the plot. It was enough to create the emotional depth behind her reason for leaving the bunker for a while, but I don’t think it’s actually going to affect her future development. It’s one of those things about her past that she has to deal with, yes, but like that mother in 4.15 who was so depressed and traumatized by the death of her son because she kept feeling his presence around her, she’s not going to be able to come to terms with the fact that she’s alive  _now_ , and that she’s clinging to ghosts of the past, until she’s able to let that old life go to a certain extent.

 

[spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [not a john winchester appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/not-a-john-winchester-appreciation-blog) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls)[again i don't have a proper heaven tag so...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/again-i-don%27t-have-a-proper-heaven-tag-so...) [i do have a couple of soulmate tags tho](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-do-have-a-couple-of-soulmate-tags-tho) [and i've been wondering what actual facts we have in canon about soulmates... and we have surprisingly few](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27ve-been-wondering-what-actual-facts-we-have-in-canon-about-soulmates...-and-we-have-surprisingly-few)[because claiming cupid matches = soulmates just did not sit right with me and now i know why](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-claiming-cupid-matches-%3D-soulmates-just-did-not-sit-right-with-me-and-now-i-know-why) [i mean this would go a long way to proving that cupid matches aren't necessarily soul mate matches](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-this-would-go-a-long-way-to-proving-that-cupid-matches-aren%27t-necessarily-soul-mate-matches) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Nov 25, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/153668739140/are-sam-and-dean-soulmates-i-dont-ship-wincest)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: Are Sam and Dean soulmates? I don't ship Wincest, but was on the blog of someone who does and they had several posts about that being canon. I think they meant non-romantically, but still don't know what they're talking about... unless they meant when Sam and Dean were shot and killed. They met up in Heaven, but they were initially apart, so idk if that counts as special case heaven sharing...**

Hooboy, what a lovely can o’worms you bring to my table! :P

Short answer: NO SAM AND DEAN ARE NOT SOULMATES.

wtf even is a “non-romantic soulmate?”

This, however, is not a new question. It’s been answered here (thank you Mel for digging up all these glorious links, and I’m listing original posting dates to demonstrate  _just how long we’ve been discussing this_ ):

Originally posted December 2013:  <http://clpolk.tumblr.com/post/70706325293/stars-both-infinite-and-distant-the-necessity-of>

From March 2014: <http://gillasue345.tumblr.com/post/80583740388>

And a REALLY long post I made myself on August 30, 2016 (so super recently…): <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149730588850/cupids-soulmates-and-heaven>

I hope you can forgive me for not essentially retyping what amounts to about 10k words of meta here.

As soon as you look at the facts the show has laid out in any sort of critical fashion (i.e. pulling off the shipping goggles), it’s impossible to believe in any way that Sam and Dean are soul mates. The ONLY canonical pair of soul mates we have in the entire series are Jimmy and Amelia Novak (proved in 10.20). Period. The end.

[and i've been wondering what actual facts we have in canon about soulmates... and we have surprisingly few](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27ve-been-wondering-what-actual-facts-we-have-in-canon-about-soulmates...-and-we-have-surprisingly-few) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)


	53. Chapter 53

[Jan 7, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155532555995/im-curious-whether-or-not-you-think-god-brought)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm curious whether or not you think God brought Cas back from purgatory? I know Naomi said the Angela did it, but if the Angels could get in, why wouldn't Cas have been able to get Dean out? Also, what would have been the point of season 6? Plus, I find it very likely Naomi would lie in order to have Cas believe he owes her his obedience. What do you think?**

Hi there. Um… no I never considered that anyone other than Naomi brought Cas back from Purgatory. It seemed clear that it wasn’t EASY for angels to get in to Purgatory. It’s not like they just popped in and out at will, or I don’t think Cas would’ve flapped off and left Dean there the moment they landed. He would’ve grabbed Dean and flapped back to Earth, you know? He would’ve saved both of them. But one angel couldn’t do that alone.

I don’t know how Naomi and the angels she sent to rescue Cas managed to get in or back out again. Cas never even found out. His return was a mystery even to him until he overcame Naomi’s control in 8.17 and learned that it was her who saved him (or ordered him to be saved, at any rate).

> WOMAN: Not many have. My name is Naomi. We rescued you.  
> CASTIEL: Purgatory.  
> NAOMI: An incursion of angels, which cost us many lives. Consider these chats your repayment.

So right there we learned there was  _something_  about Castiel that was important enough for Naomi to decide it was worth risking “many lives” to bring him out of Purgatory. And after the entirety of s6 revolved around the fact that nobody seemed to know exactly where Purgatory even  _was_ , let alone how to get there, it requires some mental gymnastics to accept a big chunk of s8 and make it fit the logic… (there’s reasons s8 is not one of my favorites, at least from an overall narrative perspective…)

They way I’ve chosen to justify this for myself is to assume that before Cas went and plundered Purgatory in 6.22,  _it really was a vast unknown_. Obviously reapers were able to get in and out with the souls they were delivering, but until 8.19 we never saw a reaper go rogue. Remember the reapers from 1.12? And 5.10? That’s largely how I imagine reapers were. Quietly doing their duty of transporting the dead without asking questions or bothering much with the living.

But then we had Tessa in 2.01, and later. She always seemed more “human.” But she also gave us one of the biggest clues as to the various powers reapers have at their disposal, even if the vast majority of them don’t bother to use them:

> **Dean** : You know, you read the most interesting things. For example, did you know that reapers can alter human perception? I sure didn’t. Basically they can make themselves appear however they want. Like, say, uh, a pretty girl. You are much prettier than the last reaper I met.   
>  **Tessa** : I was wondering when you would figure it out.  
>  **Dean** : I should have known. That whole “accepting fate” rap of yours is far too laid-back for a dead chick. But the mother, and the body, I’m still trying to figure that one out.  
>  **Tessa** : It’s my sandbox, I can make you see whatever I want.

(side note to screech about how idiotically unnecessary the 9.03 reapers-as-angels-who-need-vessels retcon was, because REAPERS DON’T FUCKING NEED HUMAN BODIES TO MAKE US SEE/FEEL/EXPERIENCE WHATEVERTHEFUCK THEY WANT US TO okay thanks sorry…)

(have I mentioned I have screaming fits over moronic continuity errors?)

So, maybe Purgatory was ONLY accessible to reapers before Cas cracked it open with that spell. Maybe Purgatory’s got a few flimsy spots in the walls now because of it.

(like the infuriating windy tunnel to Hell just sitting open behind a rock… godfuckingdammit, can we just agree that Bucklemming canon isn’t actual canon? Because I’d sleep better that way.)

(no really, if you have to perform this degree of mental gymnastics to justify stuff, it shouldn’t be in the story. If they need to bend canon so far just to tell a story, I should be able to bend it back by disregarding all the wtf moments and finding actual logical canon facts to support the outcome.)

(okay finally back to the point after a ridiculous number of bucklemming parentheticals…)

So this is how I justify it. It’s pretty tenuous, because bucklemming canon.

There’s also a matter of the tablets having come into play. The Leviathan tablet, when Sam and Dean broke it out of its protective rock layer, clearly had a cosmic effect. It was the Word of God becoming active on Earth again.

Sure, Chuck had been writing down new Words (the Winchester Gospel y’all), but the tablets were the words of Creation Itself in a way that nothing else in our reality was. In a similar way to Metatron using the Angel Tablet to power his “act of creation” through his typewriter in s9, we can think of Kevin (as the newly-activated Prophet) performing a similar “act of creation” in s7 by reading and translating the Leviathan Tablet.

Before he’d done that, NOBODY had apparently had this knowledge of Purgatory (well, aside from Metatron and Chuck himself, but they’d both tucked tail and run).

Much the same way they were trying to use the Demon Tablet to shut the gates of Hell permanently in s8, it’s possible that whatever Kevin did with the Leviathan tablet (and possibly the fact that Cas had put that first crack into the Purgatory wall back in s6) seems to have at least provided a roadmap to anyone with the power to follow it.

(still pissed about the open tunnel between Hell and Purgatory tbh. Let’s assume that it sealed itself up, and had only opened because someone had activated the Hell Trials. When Sam stopped the trials, let’s assume that the rifts he created in the process like fresh wounds in the walls of reality all closed themselves up permanently. and they’ve learned not to screw with the Natural Order that badly ever again.)

Then again, maybe it was all a lie on Naomi’s part, and she really had no idea how Cas managed to just pop back out of Purgatory. Maybe she was just guilting him into working for her. Because he’s the famous spanner in the works who doesn’t even die right. He just keeps popping up like a bad penny.

Maybe she was alerted when Cas mysteriously and miraculously popped up on Earth again and snatched him up to Heaven for reprogramming before setting him loose in the world to be her spy. 

Because she never did say that the “incursion of angels” rescued him from Purgatory itself. Or  _exactly whose lives it cost them_. Angel lives? Demon lives? Human lives? Monster lives? Who knows? She didn’t say that many angels were killed harrowing the gates of Purgatory in a similar fashion to how Dean was saved from Hell, you know? 

We know that Naomi was very Zachariah-like in her methods, avoiding certain truths to manipulate people.

But Cas is now very aware of this, having been on both sides of this manipulation. Which was super obvious in 12.08 and his response to Mr. Ketch on whether or not he could sense a lie…

So you’re right, that could fit as a reasonable explanation, as well. Or it could be whatever combination of these theories is personally preferable to you. :P

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [spn 6.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.22) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 2.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.01) [spn 8.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.19) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [naomi](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/naomi) [all my tags for zachariah somehow involve the fact that dean stabbed him in the face pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-my-tags-for-zachariah-somehow-involve-the-fact-that-dean-stabbed-him-in-the-face-pffft) [why do i keep talking about him today? ugh](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/why-do-i-keep-talking-about-him-today%3F-ugh) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics) [prophets of chuck](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/prophets-of-chuck) [Death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle) [which sadly i think is my old reaper tag as well... :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-sadly-i-think-is-my-old-reaper-tag-as-well...-%3AP) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [i reserve the right to come back and add more tags as i think of them because this somehow got really involved... >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-reserve-the-right-to-come-back-and-add-more-tags-as-i-think-of-them-because-this-somehow-got-really-involved...-%3E.%3E)


	54. Chapter 54

[Jan 7, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155553285370/takes-over-the-nearest-flat-surface-now-youve)

51 notes

**[trisscar368](https://trisscar368.tumblr.com/) asked: *takes over the nearest flat surface* Now you've made me think about Purgatory in a not-binge mode mindset. Wouldn't it be fairly logical to assume that the tunnel to hell works under the same precepts as the portal out of Purgatory? That portal out in and of itself makes zero sense without the context of either the Trials or a more Dante-esque possibility that souls can escape Hell on their own. And I'm utterly questioning how Cas got into Hell to grab Dean without needing a hellgate. (1/)**

[trisscar368](http://trisscar368.tumblr.com/post/155545298279/takes-over-the-nearest-flat-surface-now-youve):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155542813205/takes-over-the-nearest-flat-surface-now-youve):
>
>> > There would have been zero need for a garrison to fight if Cas could simply have teleported in to where Dean was being held. And now I’m questioning why the garrison even needed to fight when the only way to kill an angel is with an Angel blade… and why the angels didn’t know that. What secret weapons of Hell have we not seen yet? Had angel deaths been blamed on demons in the past when it was someone else’s fault? I need… so much backstory and worldbuilding notes. (2/)
>>> 
>>> Stop making me question everything :P
>> 
>> No.
>> 
>> :D
>> 
>> *cracks knuckles*
>> 
>> Let’s take this point by point:
>> 
>> 1\. The portal through which Dean escaped Purgatory apparently only opened because HE, A HUMAN, WAS PRESENT IN PURGATORY. And as Benny said, “It’s a human portal, jackass. Only humans can pass through. I show you the door, you hump my soul to the other side.” We saw it seal itself up once Dean stepped through it.
>> 
>> 2\. It’s possible that in addition to the Return To Earth Portal there was also the Escape To Hell version. Maybe both portals only open up when a human soul is present in Purgatory, since human souls aren’t supposed to be in Purgatory at all, while Earth and Hell are both places designed for human souls to exist (albeit in very different conditions…)
>> 
>> 2a. Hell and Purgatory are very different places that were created for different purposes, and function in metaphysically different ways. Purgatory was ALWAYS a locked dimension. Much like how Amara was locked away in her own little dimension, and later Lucifer’s Cage was designed to be an inescapable place, a trip to Purgatory was always meant to be a one-way, with no return possible.
>> 
>> 2b. Hell has never been a completely locked dimension in this way. Demons have always been able to escape, given the right conditions. They could be summoned (crossroads demons have a long history of bopping around on the planet, yeah?), and it seems that the limits placed on demons leaving Hell were more a function of the Ruling Entity controlling the comings and goings of hell’s denizens rather than a physical inability to leave the place. Meg, Azazel, Alastair, Lilith, Ruby, Crowley– even Specky from 1.04 managed to run free on the planet before the hellgate was opened. I always thought of the hellgate opening more like a bunch of kids sneaking out through an open window rather than getting official permission to go through the front door like most demons do.
>> 
>> In s11, after Crowley began losing his grip on Hell, and Amara was gobbling up his minions like grapes, we learned that he didn’t even have anyone guarding the front door anymore. We also had a lot more “rogue demons” amassing their own power bases on Earth, like the demon in 11.15 was doing with Gunner Lawless.
>> 
>> 2c. In fact, I always imagined that the whole point of the Hell Trials in s8 was to effectively seal off Hell in the same way that Purgatory was sealed off. In effect, it was quite similar to Metatron’s spell that dumped all the angels out of Heaven.
>> 
>> And OH GOSH WOULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN AWFUL IF THE HELL TRIALS SLAMMING THE GATES ON HELL HAD RESULTED IN EVERY DEMON IN HELL DUMPED OUT ONTO THE EARTH?! Seems like a damn fine reason to have stopped before their final act of hubris probably would’ve resulted in THE WORST DISASTER EVER.
>> 
>> 3\. Cas and the other angels didn’t need a hellgate to get into Hell, because ^^. Hell was never a sealed dimension.
>> 
>> 4\. We know Lucifer had crypts filled with all sorts of weapons, which he called for in 11.15. But his crypts had long been looted by other demons (including Crowley, who’d established his own storage unit crypts). Demons knew about these crypts back in s8. Some demons loyal to Lucifer (like Meg), had known of them long before then, too. What weapons might’ve been stored there? Blades that could kill angels?
>> 
>> I’ve tried to describe what Heaven might actually look like, compared to how it’s portrayed in three dimensions so that we can actually SEE it in a way that’s comprehensible to our small human brains. Compared to angels, and even compared to demons, we have rather limited powers of perception, you know? 
>> 
>> I figured Hell was similar. Humans need to mentally “overlay” something we can understand atop a realm where beings’ true forms are multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent, or formless smokemonsters.
>> 
>> So while nothing might be able to kill an angel except for another angel (or an angelic weapon, or maybe some of the stuff Lucifer had stored in his crypts…), can you imagine the damage 10,000 demons harrying a single angel, even in its true form, have the potential to inflict?
>> 
>> Hence why things such as the Rit Zien angels had jobs, dealing the merciful death blow to an angel rendered beyond help by a demon attack. Angels might be pretty damn powerful, but we’ve seen them hurt plenty… like when Alastair was torturing Cas in 4.16, and was performing some spell to banish Cas out of his vessel (or so it seemed).
>> 
>>   
> 
>> 
>> And I can only imagine that an incursion of angels plowing their way through hell to find Dean Winchester’s slightly tarnished soul would’ve brought demonkind out in MASSES to attack. But the battle happened in a dimension that humans just can’t perceive, you know? So this is what we get to actually see.
>> 
>> Like what we saw when the angels attempted to smite Amara with the Big Heaven Laser, or when the demons tried to attack her similarly. The demons managed to toss her around a lil bit, do her some surface-level damage. The angel laser did some more substantial damage that Rowena was called in to treat for a while… but she was eventually able to overcome the damage.
>> 
>> Last, I refer you to this quote from 8.17 when Cas was talking with Meg:
>>
>>> MEG: Would it kill you to watch a movie, read a book?  
> CASTIEL: A movie, no. But a book with the proper spells – yeah, it could, theoretically, kill me.
>> 
>> Does that make it better or worse? :P
> 
> Fiend.  :P  *hands over a box of cookies*
> 
> My brain is still churning more questions, such as how Benny knew about the portal, what the social structure of purgatory was before Eve left, and why magic can affect angels and Chuck and Amara… and if the entire purpose of hell was to hold the cage, and demons are actually squatters… and why a locked dimension would need an escape hatch for a soul that couldn’t arrive their naturally… and what would a human soul do to purgatory…
> 
> *mutters at the writers*

AH! thank you! *eats cookies*

*no really I was compelled to go get some cookies* *they’re oreos*

FIRST OF ALL, I forgot an important point in the previous reply. Silly me. Namely, why didn’t Cas (or any of the angels) simply boop directly to Dean’s side and yoink him out of hell without a fight…

First of all, Hell’s a different dimension from Heaven or Earth. It operates under different rules. Also, it seems like the kind of place where every soul in the place was screaming out to be saved, you know? How would the angels even lock on to one specific soul in that angry chorus? He needed to be found.

Plus, all of the “other dimensions” on this show I interpret as loosely metaphorical, because we’re trying to imagine stuff that’s outside the scope of human perception (like angel voices blowing out eardrums and glass, and seeing an angel’s true form burning out your eyes). So they tell us “angels fought their way through hell to find you” and I picture this freaky non-Euclidean battle taking place in like five dimensions. :P

ON TO THE NEW QUERIES: *gets more oreos*

Benny could’ve known about the portal the same way he knew about Dean. Word gets around. Freaky portal opened up on this hillside over yonder right at the same time The Human shows up tracking an angel through Purgatory, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Maybe some of the monsters tried slipping through the portal themselves and (of course) didn’t make it through. Benny’s a clever dude and he’d already been tired of the killing and whatnot, decided that rather than try and fight The Human, he’d  _befriend_  him. Help him find the angel, fight together, and then find the portal, in exchange for his freedom. So while Dean’s busy slaughtering his way back to Cas, Benny’s quietly trading gossip with everyone he runs across, finding out more about this portal, asking others about the soul transfer spell or whatever, all while tracking down Dean himself.

Dean really did get that Benny wasn’t like all the other monsters. I think Sam even began to see it in the end, even if he was still jealous of Dean’s friendship with Benny long after Benny decided to stay in Purgatory. Which is sad.

Why wouldn’t magic affect angels? And even Chuck and Amara? I mean, I don’t think ALL magic can affect them, but  _some_  magic can. Just depends if you’re using the RIGHT magic. Amara, for example, seemed to be most harmed by LIGHT. I.e., the opposite of what she was (Darkness). Chuck seemed to be most affected by Darkness, the opposite of what HE was. And anything in a human or human-shaped vessel seems to be at least slightly vulnerable. Vessels are just squishy meat bags, after all.

I’m sorry for the previous sentence.

I don’t think the entire purpose of Hell was to hold the cage. Hell existed long before the cage did. Lucifer got into the garden and created the first demon. I think that was probably the origin of Hell. Demons had to have somewhere to go. Earth was for Humans. Demons were no longer human. Lucifer also had to be around long enough to tempt Cain and Abel, and give Cain his Mark. It was probably some time after this when Lucifer was tossed into the Cage, deep inside the most isolated part of Hell. Demons aren’t squatters. Hell was probably created for them (or  _because_  they were created).

Exactly the way the escape portals popped up in purgatory, BECAUSE a human was there.

I’m not suggesting that it was some sort of failsafe mechanism built into the universe in advance. I think, according to the laws of Purgatory, the presence of a human soul constituted a  _wrongness,_ and the portals opened up in an attempt to correct this fundamental wrongness. A human soul violated the laws of purgatory, and purgatory gave one of these:

[Originally posted by cierramarie0](https://tmblr.co/Zxi9Dr1mDeZIg)

The only way (officially recorded, anyway, on the Leviathan Tablet of God’s Word) for a human to wind up in Purgatory is to bone Dick. Um… I mean, to ritually kill the leader of the Leviathan.

Not just any old human could manage a trick like that.

And really, Dean showed us  _exactly_ what that particular brand of human soul would do to Purgatory. (see above referenced bloody swath of destruction and death)

[oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [long post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/long-post) [BENNY!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/BENNY%21) [i reserve the right to come back and add more tags as i think of them because this somehow got really involved... >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-reserve-the-right-to-come-back-and-add-more-tags-as-i-think-of-them-because-this-somehow-got-really-involved...-%3E.%3E)

 

[Feb 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157497474185/flyingfish1-floralmotif-trisscar368)

288 notes

[flyingfish1](http://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/post/157495535803/floralmotif-trisscar368):

> [floralmotif](http://floralmotif.tumblr.com/post/157492373012/trisscar368-elizabethrobertajones):
>
>> [trisscar368](http://trisscar368.tumblr.com/post/157491671674/elizabethrobertajones-floralmotif):
>>
>>> [elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157491455818/floralmotif-trisscar368-i-may-or-may-not-have):
>>>
>>>> [floralmotif](http://floralmotif.tumblr.com/post/157491103382/trisscar368-i-may-or-may-not-have-spent-the-past):
>>>>
>>>>> [trisscar368](http://trisscar368.tumblr.com/post/157490845114/i-may-or-may-not-have-spent-the-past-day-trying-to):
>>>>>
>>>>>> I may or may not have spent the past day trying to map out the Bunker.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> This may have involved watching every scene in the bunker since season 8 up till current. Yes, within the last 24 hours.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I may have come to the conclusion that this is impossible.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sam’s bedroom keeps moving where it is in the bunker. Doors appear and disappear. Doors are placed in walls where they can’t logically go anywhere. Directions are given to rooms that don’t exist. (There aren’t four doors on the left down that hall Sam I counted there just aren’t.) One room may be four separate and distinct locations. There doesn’t seem to be anything on the top of the map, yet I know of three rooms that have to be there. There’s at least one basement and one upper floor. I can’t find the stairs.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Don’t ever try to make sense of the Bunker. Save yourselves.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Apparently The Bunker is also an Eldritch Abomination. It shifts around in ways that people are unable to detect with their perception of reality. That would also explain the wifi.. and the lights…. and a lot of other things. Headcanon accepted: The Bunker is a benevolent/indifferent cosmic entity that can fold spacetime.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I remember some interview or something where Wanek said the bunker was ambiguous on purpose. He wanted it to seem maze like and convenient for them. If they made the layout more concrete, it’d be harder to create random rooms that weren’t there before and so on. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> It feels like a game of Betrayal in the House on the Hill. The tiles move around and appear as you enter rooms like they’re in a state of super positioning.
>>>>> 
>>>>> We appreciate your effort though. At least I do. It takes a lot to sit down and try and get that much information. Kudos for trying.
>>>> 
>>>> I tried once too! Here’s my map:
>>>> 
>>>>   
> 
>>> 
>>> It hurts how accurate this is. The kitchen is the only absolute point in the hallways.
>> 
>> Pfft, I love this. 
>> 
>> Working with and playing a lot of video games makes me think that if you managed to clip your way through the wall of the kitchen, you’d end up floating in some sort of cosmic void while The Bunker tries to orient a corporeal space around you. Like an unloaded zone in a video game.
>> 
>> Welp, if I write fanfic with the bunker, just assume it’s an eldritch abomination. This concept amuses me verily.
>> 
>> If effing Oz can exist in the SPN universe, so can relatively indifferent cosmic entities that fold spacetime and casually take on mindscape aspects. If they existed in the show(they don’t really), they’d be theoretically the most powerful beings we’d be aware of. They’re undetectable by the people of the universe, can alter matter on their whim, can change their size, can exist in multiple places/dimensions at once and can control perception of their being. 
>> 
>> Now I want to write a fanfic about the rules that govern the Bunker breaking a little and Sam and Dean getting a glimpse of what’s basically “At the Mountains of Madness” SPN style. Like seeing a mall Santa without his beard when you’re 5. Like they just casually walk in one day while the thing was sleeping or something and everything looks super weird till it wakes up and forms everything before their eyes. When it’s over, they have no clue it ever happened.
>> 
>> But we would.
> 
> There is a bunker floor plan [here](http://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/post/113094928268/bakasara-filleretive-spn-rants-supermishamiga), from a few years ago, but I don’t know how useful it is… 

I mean they still don’t know how the place even has running water or electricity, so… and since I just watched 8.13 again this morning I’m gonna quote this here and assume it’s meta commentary on the bunker itself:

> SAM: Yeah. I still can’t figure out how we even have water… or electricity.  
> DEAN: Yep, well, I am putting that under the “ain’t broke” column. Listen, little brother, let’s not go all geek on this stuff, okay?  
> SAM: "Geek"?  
> DEAN: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, don’t – don’t get me wrong. This stuff is awesome, and it looks like they ran a real tight outfit here, but I’m just saying, you know, don’t, uh, don’t think that they knew some big secrets that we don’t know.  
> [DEAN strikes some poses with the scimitar while SAM’s back is to him. As SAM turns, DEAN quickly straightens up.]  
> SAM: Dean… they were a secret society.  
> DEAN : Which means that they made crap up and wore fezzes and sashes and swung around scimitars. They probably didn’t even sharp– [DEAN runs his finger along the blade and cuts himself] That’s very sharp. [He replaces the scimitar on the stand.]  
> SAM: Dean, look, I think we might have something here – something that could help us, help humanity. Henry certainly thought so. I mean, you know damn well we could use a break. What if we finally got one? [They look at each other for a moment, then DEAN looks away.] Are you gonna take off the dead-guy robe?

Translated line by line into bunker meta:

SAM: I have no idea how this place works on a fundamental level.

DEAN: Don’t think too hard about it. It all works. Don’t try to apply “logic” and mess it all up

SAM: “logic”?

DEAN: Yeah, it’s like Heaven. And that weird Axis Mundi road. So what if the road’s in a closet or printed on a postcard? It still gets you from point A to point B. See? These dudes don’t really know anything we don’t…

[Dean geeks out, wearing his dead guy robe, over the cool swords and shit]

SAM: Dean, they built this place. They obviously knew SOMETHING we don’t.

DEAN: Pffft. [cuts himself and realizes that he may have underestimated the place]

SAM: Look, this place is pretty awesome, and if we can understand the secrets it holds, it won’t matter, because we’ll be able to do our jobs better because of it. It’s about time something went our way. But, do you have to wear the dead guy’s robe? Can you please put on some pants?

[the bunker](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-bunker) [spn behind the scenes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-behind-the-scenes) [the whole place is a metaphor :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-whole-place-is-a-metaphor-%3AP) [THE DEEP VOID OF SPAAAAAACE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THE-DEEP-VOID-OF-SPAAAAAACE) [if heaven was some sort of ~wavygravy~ noneuclidean nightmare and angels in heaven were subtitled screeching balls of light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-heaven-was-some-sort-of-~wavygravy~-noneuclidean-nightmare-and-angels-in-heaven-were-subtitled-screeching-balls-of-light) [huh that tag just popped up for me and it just feels right to use here... :D](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/huh-that-tag-just-popped-up-for-me-and-it-just-feels-right-to-use-here...-%3AD) [does this mean I should add 'the bunker' to my tag for alternate dimensions? possibly...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/does-this-mean-I-should-add-%27the-bunker%27-to-my-tag-for-alternate-dimensions%3F-possibly...) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[May 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160446377540/805-dean-has-some-grown-up-personal-crap-to)

30 notes

8.05: Dean has some grown-up, personal crap to handle.

**DEAN** : When’s that little idiot gonna stop running from us?  
 **SAM** : I don’t know, Dean. I mean, you did try to kill his mother.  
 **DEAN** : I was trying to kill Crowley, okay? Who happened to be wearing Kevin’s mother at the time. Well, there’s a difference.  
 **SAM** : Apparently not to Kevin. Oh, I know. Maybe because – oh, yeah – it’s his mother.

When Sam questions Dean as to why he’s abandoning the “Winchester holy grail” of shutting the gates of hell forever now that they’re both back “on the job” and looking for Kevin, we begin to see just a bit of how little either of them trusts the other right now. Dean refuses to tell Sam what he’s up to:

**DEAN** : What, Sam? Last I counted, you took a year off from the job. I need a day. 

While Sam tries to convince himself he’s not stalking Amelia, that he’s just keeping an eye on her because he’s “concerned.”

Dean brings Benny the cooler of blood he asked for, and calls them even, but Dean demands to know what’s really going on with him, and we learn about Benny’s “family business.” VAMPIRATES. And that he’s on a mission to take revenge on the vampire who turned him, and then killed him.

Dean agrees to help him, but even Benny’s keeping a little bit of the truth from Dean here. He’s not seeking personal revenge so much as seeking revenge because he believed his master killed the woman he loved. He later discovers that he  _turned_  her instead, to keep her for  _himself_.

(sounds a wee bit like Brian in 8.04 here, no? but in this case, when Benny discovered that Andrea was still alive and thought for one moment that they might have a chance to be together again, he discovers that she just wants to stay where they are and run the Vampirate crew together… whatever it was about her that Benny had loved– her  _humanity_ – was gone. 

**BENNY** : I’m sorry. All this is because of me. I’m sorry.  
 **ANDREA** : No. It’s not your fault. You never hid anything from me, Benny. I chose you.  
 **BENNY** : But why’d you stay… with them, with him? Why?

We learn a little bit more about vampires, and what happens to them after they’re turned. That they come prepackaged with a sort of powerlessness to resist the vampire that turned them, but Benny was somehow different. He was strong enough to question their master and defy orders, which is how he was able to choose to be with Andrea in the first place, drawing the master’s wrath down on the both of them.

But Dean trusted that Benny could “drink blood, not people.” Sam’s angry that Dean would go off on a hunt alone with someone he’d never even heard of, let alone met. That Dean’s clearly keeping secrets from him. It gets even worse when Sam meets Dean and Benny at the dock and discovers Dean’s “friend” he was hunting with was a vampire.

Because hell there’s a lot of bitterness there that Dean had already gone one step farther than just giving a monster a chance and letting them go… he’d actively befriended one behind Sam’s back.

We also learn a little bit about WHY Dean was so willing to trust Benny through their flashbacks to Purgatory:

**BENNY** : You see, you’re an intact, living human being stuck in Purgatory’s craw. This dimension wants to spit you out, which is exactly what’s gonna power our escape pod. Now, I’m pretty sure I can squeeze through, too, because, after all, you take away the fangs and the fun, I was born human, too. But…  
 **CASTIEL** : I don’t think it would work for me.  
 **BENNY** : You hear what he’s telling you, Dean? Your buddy is saying–   
 **DEAN** : Listen to me, you undead blood junkie, I’m the one with the mojo. I’m the one with the plan. Cas… we’re gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.  
 **BENNY** : Obviously, I’m less than comfortable with that.

We’re shown over and over from the moment Benny met Cas that he considered him a liability in every way. A liability that may even end up getting him killed at that last moment before his chance at freedom and life at the portal back to Earth. Yet Benny saw what Dean was willing to do  _for Cas_ , that Dean was willing to die  _himself_  for Cas. Over and over again.

When faced with a situation that could have put an end to all of his personal issues with Dean’s refusal to leave without Cas, putting all three of them at risk, he could’ve let that leviathan kill Cas. It would’ve wrecked Dean, but if Benny had let Cas die there, instead of saving Cas’s life, he would’ve gotten what he wanted out of the deal… a straight leviathan-free shot to the portal and a free ride back to Earth. 

But in that moment  _he chose to save Cas, even knowing it was putting his own life and safety at risk_. And Dean knew it.

**BENNY** : Why’d you do it, Dean?  
 **DEAN** : Do what?  
 **BENNY** : Resurrect me. You could have drained my soul into any culvert, and no one would have been the wiser.  
 **DEAN** : What the hell are you talking about? Hey, you good?  
 **BENNY** : Man… I don’t know what I am.

We see the flashback to purgatory, of Dean seeing exactly what Benny was… because in that moment he saved Cas’s life, he was selfless. It was probably the least monstrous thing any monster’s ever done on this show. And it earned Dean’s loyalty.

And because Dean’s adopted the “what happens in purgatory stays in purgatory” attitude, Sam just can’t understand.

Dean was “spun out,” if you will, over not knowing what happened to Cas, over the fact that Cas had stayed behind, had  _left him_. That he didn’t even  _try_ to save himself right at the last moment while he was straddling the portal to freedom. How could he even begin to explain all that to Sam, especially when he was powerless to do anything about it. So Dean stuffed it all down and tried to bury it the way he always had.

But Sam also was keeping secrets, about the woman he’d abandoned the life for, abandoned Kevin Tran to Crowley for. 

[spn 8.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.05) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)[BENNY!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/BENNY%21) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the rashomon effect](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-rashomon-effect)

 

#  [Welcome to Earth 2 – Alternative realities in Supernatural and their narrative purpose](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161483637885/welcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in)

[Jun 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161483637885/welcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in)

87 notes

[nerdylittleshit](http://nerdylittleshit.tumblr.com/post/161478853532/welcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in):

>   
> 
> 
> (All screencaps by [screencaped.net](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fscreencapped.net%2Ftv%2Fsupernatural%2F&t=OTk2NzZjYWQ5NGExZjZkNjM0YzhlY2QxOTIxMDYwMjcyODY4OTc0NywxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1))
> 
> **CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 12 !!!**
> 
> First of all I love alternative realities. It’s a [trope](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FMain%2FAlternateUniverse&t=Njc2OTkxMDQyYWU3MzdhMzIyMjU2ZjE3OWEwZmNiOGFiNDE2OTM0YywxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1) almost every genre show uses at least once; some for just one episode, while it becomes a main plot line in others. It usually plays out a “What if”-scenario, by creating a different reality in changing a major plot element from the past (for example: What would have happen if character x never died?). It discusses the question how much certain events have influenced the character’s lives, but also how much they remain the same. The reason I love this trope is that if you do it right those episodes serve as excellent character studies.
> 
> The reasons for alternative realities are very different. Sometimes it is just a dream or a hallucination, especially if this trope is only used for one episode. Other times alternative realties can be created through [time travel](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMany-worlds_interpretation%23Time_travel&t=NTExZjg4N2M5YmMwMmNmMWRiMjJiMjQ0ZjA3ZDcyNWRlMjU1NTVlNywxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1); by changing the past you can create a new timeline, different from the timeline you are coming from (a concept that has been used on [The Flash](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Flash_%282014_TV_series%29&t=MGVlMTZlM2UzMjczNjY3NmNjMWI4Y2Q3NGIwZTI5NTUyZDNiYzQ5ZiwxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1)). And then of course there is the theory that [multiple universes](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMultiverse&t=OWY4YjIwYjJiZmIwOWY0ODhlNjMzMzk4NDk2NDhiZTc0NDE5ZjQ1OCwxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1) already exist; fiction then plays with the idea of creating portals to visit other universes (see [Fringe](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFringe_%28TV_series%29%23Parallel_universe&t=NTk3YTU3OTNjNzcyZmE5YjVmNWI1OWQ5MjlkNmU3ZmU2MDQ5ODU5NywxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1) or [DC’s multiverse](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMultiverse_%28DC_Comics%29&t=OWY4NTc5Y2FmY2RkYzBlMDdhZTI3Nzg3Y2FkZGRmMWMxYWI3YmEwOCwxOUFXbXhtZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161483637885%2Fwelcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in&m=1)).
> 
> While we have seen several alternative realties over the years on Supernatural, I would argue that none of those realties were real, but rather specifically created for the Winchesters. It wasn’t until 12x23 that it was confirmed that there are in fact parallel universes, something that I hope we will see more in season 13. Until then though let’s have a look back at the alternative realities we have seen so far.
> 
> **2x20 What Is and What Should Never Be**
>
>> _You think these suckers can really grant wishes?_
> 
> One of my all time favourite episodes of this show. A study in Dean. And of course super painful (what else did we expect?). A djinn attacks Dean and transports him into a reality where his greatest wish comes true: that his mother never died. What is interesting to me is that we don’t see the actual reality of what would have happened if Mary never died but instead what Dean thinks would have happened. Not even a djinn would have had the power to know how this reality would have actually looked like. By letting Dean create this reality though the djinn improves the chances of Dean staying in there. Because of course Dean would create a reality he thinks is realistic. Instead of waking up in a perfect world though we see a reality full with little flaws, that tell us a lot about Dean.
> 
> In a world where Mary never died Sam and Dean grew up normal; they never became hunters. Sam went to Stanford and proposed to Jess (just like the real Sam had intended to do), Dean became a mechanic the way his dad used to be and had a beautiful girlfriend with a respectable job (Carmen was a nurse). But his dad is still dead (even though he died less painful) and as it turns out he and Sam don’t get along. In fact Dean was kind of a jerk. People constantly ask him if he had been drinking again, implying that he has an alcohol problem in this world. Sam doesn’t even seem to be surprised when he thinks Dean is stealing from their mother. There is an [excellent meta](http://nerdylittleshit.tumblr.com/post/161403934692/ameliacareful-ragingcanadian-i-am-working) about how all of Dean’s failures (his drinking, stealing etc) are results of his hunting life, but the fact that he still has these flaws in this supposedly perfect universe tells us that he thinks this is who he is, not what his life as a hunter made him into. The more you look at this episode the more depressing it gets.
> 
> [Keep reading](http://nerdylittleshit.tumblr.com/post/161478853532/welcome-to-earth-2-alternative-realities-in)

Since I was tagged in the thing *waves hello*

*cracks knuckles*

I hecka agree with your conclusions here, but being who I am as a person I see some of SPN’S prior “alternate realities” slightly differently. The only things I interpret differently:

Most of these episodes I wouldn’t consider a true alternate reality. The obvious example is Dean’s Djinn dream in 2.20. I mean, we call it the “djinn dream,” and I don’t think it was ever represented to be an actual alternate universe that existed anywhere but in Dean’s own mind. And I think that MOST of the angel-inspired “alternate realities” operated in this same way– entirely within Sam and Dean’s minds.

Because the one “alternate reality” episode that I personally consider “the most meta episode” comes the closest to proving that yes, this is one huge way in which angels manipulate perception of reality, and that’s 9.18 Meta Fiction. Cas experiences that “altered reality” in which Gabriel apparently guides him on a merry chase, only for us to discover later in the episode that NONE of it was real. It was all Metatron creating an artificial reality entirely within Cas’s mind, all the while Cas was sitting tied to a chair in Metatron’s office in Heaven.

So this is how I think of MOST of these AU-like situations the show has given us over the years, as some variation on a djinn dream experience, or an angel-induced vision where the person experiencing the vision never moves and the entire experience happens inside their head.

So now including 9.18 in the list of AU’s:

**2.20** : djinn dream– not an actual alternate reality because it takes place in a “drug induced” state entirely within Dean’s mind.

**3.11** : Gabriel/trickster: I have never thought there was any actual time travel involved in this episode. I always thought it took place entirely within Sam’s mind (hence him waking up in bed at the beginning of each new “day” in the dream and then waking up finally FOR REAL for the first time at the end of the episode, and Dean only remembering the ~actual single day~ he lived.

**4.17** : The SPN REALITY ENTIRELY. THIS IS NOT AN AU IN ANY SENSE OF THE WORD. Sam and Dean weren’t “transported” anywhere. They were living in their own normal world, with “false memories” implanted by Zachariah. Zachariah even says so himself:

**ZACHARIAH** : You should see my decoupage.  
 **DEAN** : Gross. No thank you. So, what? I’m just hallucinating all this? Is that it?  
 **ZACHARIAH** : Not at all. Real place, real haunting. Just plunked you in the middle without the benefit of your memories.

It was all real, except Dean and Sam having their memories removed… So, not an AU unless you want to start calling Dean in 12.11 an AU, and it’s absolutely not that.

**5.04** : The debate on what the endverse actually was will probably be the longest-running debate in fandom history someday. *I personally* believe (and no, I don’t want to debate this AGAIN, thanks; all messages on the subject will be deleted, because I am stating MY PERSONAL BELIEF that I hold and I’m not trying to say that anyone ELSE must ascribe to my personal beliefs, just that I don’t care to debate this any more because I have talked this into the ground MULTIPLE times over the years) that the endverse was exactly the same sort of “real” that Sam’s eternal Tuesdays were in 3.11. I.e., not real at all.  And that is all I have to say on the subject.

**6.15** : For my money, the ONLY AU until 12.23 that likely was truly an alternate reality– because it wasn’t created and accessed by a single angel, but THREE SEPARATE ANGELS. If this was just a vision in someone’s head, or implanted memories, or a “pocket universe” created by a single angel, then how did Balthazar, Virgil, and Raphael all access this single universe? Yeah, this one’s got some distinctive signs of authenticity to it, and I have spent A LOT of time thinking about how that AU worked and was accessed metaphysically. I haven’t been able to punch a hole in the theory that it was, indeed, a true alternate universe and that their experiences there were very real.

Not to mention in 12.23, they specifically reference 6.15 for an explanation of what lies beyond the rift:

**Castiel:** No. No through there it’s Earth, but-but different. It’s an alternate reality.  
 **Sam:**  So, it’s a bizarro world? Or – or like that place we got zapped to where we were, uh, actors on a TV show.  
 **Dean:**  Oh, yeah. The supernatural wasn’t real. And you were Polish.

**6.17** : Again, I’m tempted to call this a “parallel universe” that splintered off our own reality at the moment Balthazar unsank the Titanic, and which dissolved when he went back and re-sank it. Not a “true AU,” but a slightly modified version of our reality with its spiraling Cosmic Consequences.

But if we’re truly going to file 2.20 as an AU, then 3.10 deserves the label too. African Dreamroot has been linked with djinn dreams multiple times. See also 8.20. Yeah, none of these are “real AU’s” but they do FEEL real while the characters are experiencing them.

And how can we leave off 6.09? Even though we didn’t see it, Dean was transported to Avalon, a fairy realm, which is definitely a contender to be defined as an alternate universe. So was Oz in 9.04 and 10.11.

And in all fairness? Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory are also alternate realms, only accessible via magic or special “portals” like the sandbox to Heaven, or else with the help of a reaper who can open portals to these realms.

We’ve also seen “pocket dimensions” (such as the Soul Eater’s Nest in 11.16, which existed “outside of time and space,” and the Empty, which I’ve always believed was more a concept of “absolute nothingness” rather than an actual realm of existence), and other magically induced vision worlds (such as the Werther Box hallucinations that seemed VERY real in 10.19).

But yeah, otherwise I do agree with your conclusions about the purpose of each of these episodes, even if I quibble over the mechanics :P

As far as Cosmic Consequences go, overseeing the opening of a rift in space and time and then dying in front of said rift seems like a pretty steep cosmic consequence to me, yeah. The fact that Mary was pulled into that rift, as the person at the center of s12′s endless spiral of cosmic consequences (because what’s dead should stay dead), made PERFECT sense to me. If she’d survived the season intact, I would’ve cried foul.

That was the cosmic consequences.

[spn 2.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.20) [spn 3.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.10) [spn 3.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.11) [spn 4.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.17) [spn 5.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.04) [spn 6.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.15) [spn 6.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.17) [spn 8.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.20)[spn 9.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.04) [spn 10.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.11) [spn 10.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.19) [spn 11.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.16) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [COSMIC. CONSEQUENCES.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/COSMIC.-CONSEQUENCES.)[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [i know i have other tags for this stuff but... what the heck are they? idek](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-know-i-have-other-tags-for-this-stuff-but...-what-the-heck-are-they%3F-idek) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [i have like actually zero fondness for endverse at all so it makes me happy to invalidate it at every turn](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-have-like-actually-zero-fondness-for-endverse-at-all-so-it-makes-me-happy-to-invalidate-it-at-every-turn) [but also fuck endverse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-also-fuck-endverse) [and no i don't even like the idea of endverse as an au god i hate that place](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-no-i-don%27t-even-like-the-idea-of-endverse-as-an-au-god-i-hate-that-place)

 

[Jul 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162825998845/im-watching-516-again-and-my-fingers-are)

28 notes

I’m watching 5.16 again, and my fingers are itching to make another post about it, but I just watched it on April 20 and made [an extensive post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159778327040/516-cue-horrifying-yet-somehow-disturbingly) about it then. It was in the bye week between 12.18 and 12.19, and there’s a few things that I think need to be said since then, especially post 12.22–

In my last post, I didn’t have Dean’s scene in Mary’s mind, so similar to Dean’s Heaven Memory of Mary in their old house in which we have the closest thing to Dean telling anyone he loves them, saying it to Mary when he was four. Now we have Dean saying it to her for real, as an adult, after venting his frustration and anger at her  _for real_ , telling her he hated her for what became of his childhood after her death, but telling her he still loved her anyway despite all of that.

From that extensive post linked above:

> The one thing Dean has to reclaim for himself is Mary. She’s absolutely not this warped Torture Hallucination Version that Zachariah presented him with, but she’s also not just that “Blessed Memory” version that Dean had presented himself… Nor are Sam and Dean the little boys that she thinks she remembers from her own version of Heaven. They’re just as fake as Dean’s childhood memory of Mary was in his heaven.

And… that’s pretty much 12.22.

Also in light of[ this answer from lizbob](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162794809750/hey-lizzy-do-you-think-michael-was-a-bigger-bad) yesterday about Michael which also touched on Zachariah, this whole scene just supports that notion that Zach– as Michael’s mouthpiece and functionary– was the officially sanctioned agent of Michael’s authority:

**ZACHARIAH** : Let me tell you something. I was on the fast track once. Employee of the month, every month, forever. I would walk these halls and people would AVERT THEIR EYES! (The house rumbles and shakes.) I HAD ‘‘RESPECT’’! And then they assigned me you. Now look at me. (He chuckles unhappily.) I can’t close the deal on a couple of flannel-wearing maggots? Everybody’s laughing at me… and they’re right to do it. So! Say yes, don’t say yes; I’m still going to take it out of your asses. It’s personal now, boys, and the last person in the history of creation you want as your enemy is me. And I’ll tell you why. Lucifer may be strong, but I’m… ‘‘petty’’. I’m going to be the angel on your shoulder for the rest of eternity.

This little speech was all about HIM and that position he occupied as essentially Michael’s lackey. And he’s definitely petty.

And NONE OF THAT reflects particularly well back on his boss– Michael.

[spn 5.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.16) [spn 12.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.22) [s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch) [all my tags for zachariah somehow involve the fact that dean stabbed him in the face pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-my-tags-for-zachariah-somehow-involve-the-fact-that-dean-stabbed-him-in-the-face-pffft) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester)[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Jul 11, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162850366075/does-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell)

17 notes

**Anonymous asked: Does it bother you at all the way in which Hell has changed in supernatural? In early seasons, it was an incredibly unknown and frightening place - where Dean spent literally 40 years being tortured. And now, it seems like it's quite the opposite. Do you think exploring Hell more in the later seasons has at all lessened its impact it's had on the series? Do you think, now that Crowley's dead, it may go back to the way it used to be?**

I think Hell on Supernatural is still a largely unknown and frightening place. And how it was for Dean back in 3.16 and early s4 when we saw some rather frightening glimpses of it, and then heard him describe it in his own words, compared to what we’ve seen of it in later seasons doesn’t negate that fact.

That’s like saying that all of heaven now looks like Naomi’s office, and the clean white hallways we’ve seen in later seasons, and therefore it’s “changed” somehow since the first time we saw it in 5.16. Like heaven, a lot of us have theorized that Hell is in the eye of the beholder.

This is mostly about Purgatory, but it’s Hell Adjacent so…:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155553285370/takes-over-the-nearest-flat-surface-now-youve>

(and I’ve thought since then that Benny very well may have been TOLD about the portal specifically, possibly by someone like, say, Chuck… and given that spell to allow his soul to be hauled out in Dean’s arm… but that’s neither here nor there for the point of this reply, I just found myself shaking my head at my past-self for not mentioning that in that post. :P)

Like what we “see” there is what our brains can make of it. Which is why Cas asked Dean in 5.16 about what he could see, and Dean described the road. Cas also said that for different people, the Axis Mundi connecting Heaven would look different. Heck maybe that shiny white hallway in later seasons  _is the exact same thing Dean saw as the road_.

So. How to translate that to film.

Basically you gotta pick SOMETHING to film, you know? So it is what it is.

As far as Hell goes, We didn’t really get to see much of it in later seasons, aside from the sort of Main Entryway area in 11.09 and 11.10 where Crowley, Rowena, Sam, Dean, and Cas hung out having tea and doing research and stuff. That’s sort of like the Hell equivalent of Naomi’s office I guess?

Because most of the time we’ve seen Crowley in his ugly warehouse throne room isn’t Hell at all. We know it’s an abandoned building near Fall River, Massachusetts. Because Crowley hates Hell.

The “room” where we saw the Cage wasn’t actually the cage. It was mocked up in Limbo (a different area of Hell entirely from where Dean would’ve been) specifically for Rowena to bring Lucifer there to talk with him before– theoretically– sending him right back to the REAL cage. Which we’d seen in first in [11.06](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fscreencapped.net%2Ftv%2Fsupernatural%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D1712%26page%3D30&t=NWJlZWJlMGUwNzYzOWI2YWUyNGM4YmQ2MTgxODkyNGI0OWRmZmFkNSxkdU9vQ2puNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162850366075%2Fdoes-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell&m=1) via Sam’s vision:

  


And it did sorta resemble the same aesthetic of Dean’s first moments in Hell.

Not to mention the abject horror of Sam’s earlier visions of the cage from his personal experience (when he was back at the hospital praying for a cure for the zompires).

Even the bits of Hell we saw in 8.19, when Sam was searching for Bobby’s soul, were pretty bleak. And I have no reason to assume that ALL of Hell looks that way, just like not ALL of Hell looks like that tidy hallway with the eternal line that Crowley showed off to Cas in 6.20.

I still think that part of the disconnect here is that people think Crowley’s “throne room” and the place he’d been keeping Lucifer locked up in s12 was Hell… and it’s not. Again, it’s that abandoned mental hospital in Fall River, Massachusetts.

I mean, check the Superwiki for any episode that has scenes in Crowley’s “palace.” They all share one location in common: Fall River, Massachusetts.

Check [12.21](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D12.21_There%2527s_Something_About_Mary&t=N2I1ZjI1NWE3NDdjMDlhM2Q4Y2NmZTIzMzc5ZjBjYmRmYzI5MmEzNyxkdU9vQ2puNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162850366075%2Fdoes-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell&m=1), or [12.19](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D12.19_The_Future&t=ZmZjYzY3N2MxMzFhMDM4YzE4NGRmOGM1ODJkMjE5ZmYzZDM3NjU0OCxkdU9vQ2puNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162850366075%2Fdoes-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell&m=1), or [12.17](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D12.17_The_British_Invasion&t=ZmJhYzA4YTcxNGE3OTJhMjhkMzA1ZTMxMDkzZDQ2ZjAyZDlhYWE4ZSxkdU9vQ2puNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162850366075%2Fdoes-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell&m=1), and then skip to the location description of an episode that takes place in actual Hell like [11.10](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D11.10_The_Devil_in_the_Details&t=YzgwYjMwOGIwNzcwZjQ1MjAzNTQ2OGJiZjFlM2QxZWViMGQxOTY3MSxkdU9vQ2puNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162850366075%2Fdoes-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell&m=1) where the first location given is… Hell. Or [11.09](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D11.09_O_Brother_Where_Art_Thou%253F&t=ZTEzNzRlMjIwMjRjYzZmYjA3MjQ3OGIwNzNiMGYxOWQ4MGI5NWIyYixkdU9vQ2puNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162850366075%2Fdoes-it-bother-you-at-all-the-way-in-which-hell&m=1), which lists BOTH Crowley’s throne room in Fall River AND Hell.

h[eaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Jul 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163099057525/hmm-this-talk-about-crowley-and-how-both-hell-and)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hmm, this talk about Crowley and how both Hell and Heaven are again unstable makes me concerned that Sam and Dean are going to have to rebuild their supernatural and hunter network. No Crowley, Rowena, or Cas (for a time presumably) plus the recurring hunters like Eileen, Wally, and the Banes family. Your point is well taken that both demons and angels know Lucifer and Jack are out there. Of course the Winchesters are our heroes but I think they're going to need some help. :)**

I know, right? There’s so much more going on now, it’s like they’ll really need to grow and entire new generation of hunters to deal with it.

Theoretically Max and twig!Alicia are still out there hunting, so there’s that…

We saw Roy and Walt join the attack on the BMoL HQ, and one of them did survive that (right? it was a wild and confusing situation). Garth and his werewolf family are still out there. There’s other hunters from the past that we didn’t see get involved with the BMoL mess, like Krissy Chambers and her crew, like Tracy Bell from 9.02… it leads us to wonder how many more are out there, and how many new hunter origin stories happened offscreen during the BMoL’s American power grab. How many other families were broken apart while the monsters were desperately scrambling to survive?

Which also brings us to the decimated monster populations. The Alpha Vampire is dead, and we learned that he’d been a big part of the reason the vampire population stayed largely in check. Like Crowley controlled his demons to an extent, the Alpha Vamp did the same, not interfering when one of his vamps went rogue and earned themselves a beheading.

Sure, the entire midwest might be vamp-free now, but that’s probably not a situation that’s gonna be permanent. Other vamps (or other monster groups entirely) will likely fill the void. And a bunch of newbie vamps who aren’t tied to the Alpha might not be as quiet or as interested in blending in… Sounds like a situation ripe for bringing the Wayward Sisters into an important hunting role, learning to manage the new situations that will inevitably arise throughout the midwest due to monster population instability. Even Alex, who had been trying to distance herself from hunting for a normal life, might have expertise and insight that will prove invaluable to a new generation of monster hunters.

Plus we know that Jody’s familiar with a much wider hunter network that Sam and Dean were (there were a lot of people at Asa’s funeral after all), and there may be others we’ve never even met yet. Claire’s been out hunting on her own for a while now, too, and may have met some contacts of her own. Same with Donna, who is just about the friendliest person on the planet and highly likely to have befriended a few hunters on her own, as well.

We know that Heaven’s been out of balance (and heck, Heaven’s had issues going all the way back to before the Apocalypse, with rogue angels like Uriel stirring up trouble even back then), and after Joshua’s death there aren’t really any more officially canon-named angels up in Heaven. Just like we will likely have rogue demons and power grabs in Hell, that’s not a new situation for Heaven. Who’s left up there to step up into that leadership role?

There’s also one Prince of Hell left, Asmodeus, who we haven’t even met yet. Something tells me that we’re due to meet him, and that he could be involved in both the power structure of Hell and the power play over who “controls” Jack.

I’m still not entirely certain that Rowena really is gone for good. I’m not sure if she’ll eventually be brought back due to her magical failsafes as she was before, or if she might possibly come back as a demon. We are assuming she went to hell if she’s actually dead, right? Souls+hell=demons. And demon witches seem to have a lot of healing ability over their vessels. Remember Crowley brought back Lucifer’s old vessel for him with magic, and Nick had been dead  _for seven years,_ and he wasn’t a walking skeleton so.. _._ I don’t think Rowena would have any trouble at all rebuilding her Ruthie-shaped body in that case, and she could possibly be even more powerful in the future. It could be a very interesting development… but again this is entirely my personal wild speculation. It’s just one potential the show may or may not follow through with.

(and also I don’t think Cas is actually going to be “gone” for very long… but we shall see on that one…)

[anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [princes of hell](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/princes-of-hell) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [wayward sisters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wayward-sisters) [rowena](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rowena) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

[Jul 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163137262985/trisscar368-helianthus21-trisscar368)

183 notes

[trisscar368](http://trisscar368.tumblr.com/post/163134483049/helianthus21-trisscar368-helianthus21):

> [helianthus21](https://helianthus21.tumblr.com/post/163133670278/trisscar368-helianthus21-random-question):
>
>> [trisscar368](http://trisscar368.tumblr.com/post/163133331619/helianthus21-random-question-would-cas-own):
>>
>>> [helianthus21](https://helianthus21.tumblr.com/post/163132706128/random-question-would-cas-own-personal-hell-look):
>>>
>>>> random question: would Cas’ own personal hell look more like Purgatory (endless fighting/violence) or like that place where Naomi made him kill a thousand Deans (hurting the people he loves/being mind-controlled)
>>> 
>>> *steeples fingers thoughtfully*
>>> 
>>> Dean’s arc s1-3 had a huge component of serial killer Dean; his comment in the s1 finale was that he was scared of how far he was willing to go for his family. His hell ended up as torture yes, but also pushing him (without his family on the line) to see how far he would go. It was all about breaking him.
>>> 
>>> Bobby in s8… he said “you’re the 200th Sam I’ve seen today. It’s how they screw with me. Just endless Sams and Deans all wearing the same black eyes.” Bucklemming logic aside, it’s showing him something personally traumatic: his happiest memories were of the boys, and some of his worst moments with them happened because of hell/possession. Not as dark as s4 hell, which I blame Crowley for (as mental torture goes… eh… read Huis Clos sometime).
>>> 
>>> Sam’s hell wasn’t really hell as we know it, but it was oldschool torture and (not to start a fight but screw it) finally bringing the s1-5 sexual assault subtext that is everywhere around Sam into realization.
>>> 
>>> Gabriel is honestly the one I’d pin a Purgatory-esque Hell for; Michael and Lucifer fighting forever would be torture for him. Castiel on the other hand…
>>> 
>>> Fighting doesn’t bother him. Making mistakes does. Cas has huge arcs with being powerless or ineffective, and he’s got a lot of trauma there that everyone can and does use against him in show; it’d be perfect for demons.
>>> 
>>> But what would be worse… is just bringing back all of his failures. All the deaths he’s caused, all the ill intentioned plans that failed. Make him watch them all again and again, and then have his friends either die or turn away.
>> 
>> hmm I basically agree with everything, just want to point out that since Cas thought of Purgatory as a place of punishment and retribution whereas Dean and Benny found something ‘pure’ in it… it gives food for thought  
> While fighting doesn’t really ‘bother’ Cas much, he’s a soldier after all, I think that he’d view a scenario in which he’s forced to use and be confronted with violence as a sort of punishment too. I think at this point he’d rather create than destroy and that’s why I brought up Purgatory.. 
> 
> *chews on food for a moment* this is where I start debating another ultra marathon… (or sleep *cough cough*) because I totally blanked on the Purgatory bit.
> 
> I’ll raise you an angst point though; he wasn’t fighting the Leviathans before he found Dean, he was running. Staying just ahead of the shreds of the thing that had possessed him.
> 
> He stayed in Purgatory as punishment; he sent Dean away (because we always save Dean) and he trapped himself with the darkness he’d given in to during s6; he trapped himself with the remnants of the power he used to kill the angels (of his own free will), and that resulted in more death and destruction throughout the following year.
> 
> He left himself there to be chased by his own personal demons. Which yes, had the power to kill him, and yeah, meant he’d have to fight more. So point, forcing him to kill would probably be an excellent hell; he hates being a destroyer. But Dean and Benny had a different experience because what they were surrounded by wasn’t personal; it was just more monsters, (which ties into both of their humanity/predator arcs).

*brings coffee and wonders if headcanons are just awake-dreaming*

Oh gosh s8 was difficult for Cas… but he did choose to stay behind in Purgatory. Yes, at first he ran to keep the Leviathan away from Dean, and his isolation was also a form of penance, but he was running from a worse, more difficult punishment… having to face the consequences of his original actions back in s6 that released the Leviathan in the first place and the death and destruction he caused on Earth. The Leviathan themselves were never his biggest fear, it was confronting everything he did.

In Purgatory he could run from the monsters. He could fight them. On Earth and in Heaven, he’d have to face the truth of what he’d done– lying to Dean, the damage he caused on Earth, and in 8.08 we see what his true fear is:

**CASTIEL** : Dean, I… When I was… bad… and I had all those things – the… the leviathans… writhing inside me… I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I – I – I can’t go back.  
 **DEAN** : 'Cause if you do, the angels will kill you.  
 **CASTIEL** : Because if I see what Heaven’s become – what I – [sighs] what I made of it… I’m afraid I might kill myself.

Then in 8.10 we see this:

He cowers from the sound of Samandriel’s screams, intercut with flashbacks to Naomi’s torture, trying to “fix” him by tinkering with his mind and his memories. To him in that moment, this seemed far worse than his choice to stay in Purgatory, even if he felt like it was a penance. For him, Purgatory was a metaphor for depression the way the Empty was a metaphor for Dean’s. But in Purgatory he couldn’t hurt anyone. His actions couldn’t have catastrophic consequences. Part of why he intended to stay there was so that he  _couldn’t_  hurt anyone else.

And then it was only after that that Naomi tortured him into full compliance, having him kill thousands of Deans in order to inure him to it. To harden his heart and return him to a less emotional, unburdened by doubt warrior angel of the Lord who would follow his orders and carry out his mission without hesitation.

When Metatron cut out his grace, leaving him completely human with no more connection to Heaven and those orders and that certainty that Naomi had programmed and beaten into him, did he really get a chance to fully  _feel_  the guilt of what he’d done.

Humanity was a trial for him, but by the time he was beginning to adjust and accept his new reality, he was forced again into a situation where he had no choice, and did what he had to do– stealing Theo’s grace and becoming an angel again.

So I think that would have to figure in Cas’s personal hell– the people (and angels) who suffered and died for his choices. Back in s6 he said he couldn’t let himself care about it because he was at war, but hooboy, does he ever care…

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Jul 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163216163300/spn-703-theres-a-shift-toward-the-wilderness)

27 notes

spn 7.03: there’s a shift toward the wilderness here, like the Winchesters are getting shoved out past even the decaying fringes of civilization– such as Bobby’s house and junkyard– and right out into the forest. Just one more way s7 takes things away from them.

They don’t have Bobby’s anymore, but they still have Rufus’s cabin in Whitefish. They’re more isolated than ever. They don’t have motels while they’re on the road, they mostly have abandoned buildings to squat in.

Even the Gas N Sip Sam (and then Dean) visits in 7.03 is rustic, like a woodsy cabin. And in contrast to Sam and Dean getting shoved further and further into the woods, away from society, it’s probably one of the last non-conforming Gas N Sip outlets we see before the Leviathan start taking them over. Before they all started becoming indistinguishable from one another– right down to the employees in their lil blue vests– like Biggersons restaurants do.

It’s like they were giving Sam and Dean a taste of that Purgatory Aesthetic all season long, like they were in some sort of Purgatory-On-Earth, and it’s the Purgatory Monsters that drove them there. So much of s7 is just topsy-turvy like this, and I can appreciate that, as painful as it is.

[spn 7.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.03) [purgatory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/purgatory) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch) [gas n sip](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gas-n-sip)

 

The thing about paradise is that the antithesis of it isn’t people who want to do bad stuff, but the fact that in order for everyone to truly have no fear, no suffering, no conflict at all, free will would have to cease to exist. Not because someone might make a bad choice that would hurt someone else, but because if I envisioned my own personal idea of “paradise” it would necessarily infringe on someone else’s idea of paradise, you see? Which is why heaven itself is split up into individual holodecks. Because that’s the only way for humans with free will to experience complete peace without infringing on free will at all.

Kinda sad and lonely, no?

As long as there’s two individual humans in the room, they’re NEVER gonna agree 100% on anything. Because that’s human nature. A world without suffering, a world of perfect peace on every level, can’t exist as long as people have free will. There has to be a compromise. And the notion of a paradise inherently eliminates that possibility.

[spn 5.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.16) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 10.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.17) [this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [since dabb has had his grubby fingers all over this from the start...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/since-dabb-has-had-his-grubby-fingers-all-over-this-from-the-start...)

 

[Jul 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163356029220/could-cas-be-in-the-empty-misha-says-cas-in-a)

56 notes

**Anonymous asked: Could Cas be in the empty? Misha says Cas in a realm "we taked about but never seen" we have never really talked about what realm angels go after death but we had talks of the empty and we never saw it**

Could be. I mean the two plausible theories I’ve come up with are either The Empty (and hoping if that’s the case they actually do hire Scout to play a cameo even if it’s just sitting in the background of the scene scribbling everything down furiously while hoping nobody notices her in the shot), or The Veil, which played such a huge, ominous role from s9-s11 while Heaven was on lockdown after Metatron’s tampering… It had become the absolute worst possible version of Heaven’s Eternal Waiting Room. But it’s still a sort of transitory space.

I’m personally REALLY hoping it’s not The Empty, which was described as a place you can’t come back from. A place “outside of creation.” Essentially nothingness. It’s anti-being. I’d hate to see it actually depicted visually, you know? As if were a place that could contain ~something~. But that’s my personal *ugh* reaction to them taking a concept they’d set up throughout s11 to stand in contrast to Chuck’s entire creation. Honestly, I’d be really disappointed in a vaguely transcendental and existential sort of way.

It would harsh my mellow.

I personally hope it’s the Veil. The Empty has that sense of impossible finality to it, but the Veil is the realm of Reapers. It’s like a transit depot for souls, and the starting point from which reapers shuttle them between realms (Heaven, Hell, Purgatory… wherever angels go when they die…). And in that sense, it’s a realm just as real and tangible as Heaven or Hell or Purgatory, a place where the dead would logically go, but where someone might intercede and pull a certain angel aside for a quick chat before they move on to catch the train to their final destination.

I have another anon along these same lines:

> You’re not betting on the upside down?

I know just enough about Stranger Things to know that this is a Stranger Things… thing. Mr. Mittens and Kidperson have both watched it, but I’m just like ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. 

Heck maybe he got rerouted to the Faerie Courts and Oberon wanted to have a go at him? Maybe he’s temporarily been transferred to Heaven, but strangely it takes him a while to figure that out because for some reason it looks exactly like the bunker, but it feels so real and it’s just so tempting to read and relax and watch television until Sam and Dean come back from whatever hunt they must be on… and then he starts to realize where he is and what’s happened…

There’s an awful lot of possibilities for where he may be. Some are obviously more likely than others, but I think the two most likely are either the Empty or the Veil.

Since those are both places that have been discussed multiple times on the show (the veil has actually been talked about MORE than the empty, going all the way back to s2 as a concept, but really addressed as a  _place_  for the first time in 4.15.)

(not to mention it’s also the plane of existence where Hellhounds reside, in addition to Reapers. So any time the show has dealt with hellhounds, it’s been veil-adjacent as well)

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [now expanding territory into the veil](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/now-expanding-territory-into-the-veil) [which is actually hell adjacent-- and heaven adjacent and purgatory adjacent AND earth adjacent](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-actually-hell-adjacent---and-heaven-adjacent-and-purgatory-adjacent-AND-earth-adjacent) [it's like the connecting stuff that ties all the realms of existence together](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-like-the-connecting-stuff-that-ties-all-the-realms-of-existence-together) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Jul 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163621680395/dorkilysoulless-postmodernmulticoloredcloak)

48 notes

[dorkilysoulless](https://dorkilysoulless.tumblr.com/post/163593138902/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-mittensmorgul):

> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/163592606742/mittensmorgul-postmodernmulticoloredcloak):
>
>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163575488115/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-mittensmorgul):
>>
>>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/163569945862/mittensmorgul-dorkilysoulless):
>>>
>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163567916330/dorkilysoulless-mittensmorgul):
>>>>
>>>>> [dorkilysoulless](https://dorkilysoulless.tumblr.com/post/163563810752/mittensmorgul-awed-frog-replied-to):
>>>>>
>>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163533716165/awed-frog-replied-to-your-post):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [awed-frog](http://awed-frog.tumblr.com/)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>  
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> [ Hey, what do you think is going to happen to hell,…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163531055595/hey-what-do-you-think-is-going-to-happen-to-hell)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I wonder if Hell needs a ruler - after all, Crowley hasn’t really been a king for, what, 2 years now? And Lucifer certainly didn’t rule Hell in any traditional sense, and in S12 he was just awol. Now the question is, did they forget about this bc it wasn’t relevant to the plot or do demons do fine without a king?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think they did point out several times that without a leader, demons tend to grab for their own power. During s9 when Crowley was mostly human and being held captive by Sam and Dean, Abaddon was there to control things with an iron fist, so that wasn’t really a power issue. But once Crowley helped orchestrate her death, he’s never been able to fully reclaim his power. I think he’s always had dissenters who didn’t want to follow his rules anyway (like the demon who’d bargained for Becky’s soul in 7.08, playing by his own rules and breaking 10-year contracts to collect immediately), but more recently the rebellious demons in s11 (I’m thinking particularly of 11.15, and the demon bending the rules of recruitment for his own power grab).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Without any sort of ruler in charge, I don’t think all of Hell will just collapse, but I think we could potentially see a lot more of this sort of rogue demon activity with no one in place keeping track of them and enforcing the rules.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Dabb did sort of hint that the Wayward Sisters spinoff would be a more “stationary” show, with a sort of “hellmouth” situation arising there. Perhaps this could potentially be related?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Crowley was, in a lot of ways, one of the best things that could happen to Humanity.  He was evil with a built-in etiquette/rules of engagement, and that was enforced, and he took a view that Hell’s operations needed to be sustainable and under the radar. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Contrast with Abaddon, who leaned toward a more warlike, wanton destruction, take-what-you-want ethic.  Which, hey, still very much within the range of Hell Aesthetic, but harder to negotiate with.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I’ll be curious to see what happens with Hell as a side in S13 and Wayward Sisters, just because you can go a lot of directions with it: headless thing falters, competing sides, all hell (ahem) breaking loose, etc.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yeah. I mean obviously a ruler like Abaddon was just not a sustainable thing for hell (with the sort forcible demon recruiting plan we saw in 9.17 with the souls in jars for rapid demonization, and the soulless folks creating havoc on top of that). 
>>>>> 
>>>>> The Wayward Sisters thing just struck me as having a lot of potential… that without any sort of stable leadership in Hell, maybe there will be a lot more rogue activity like this (especially if it’s centered around a “hellmouth” type scenario).
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’d also been thinking that after the attempted vampire (and other monster) extinction perpetrated by the BMoL last season, there’s a sort of “monster vacuum” in the upper midwest now, and enterprising monsters might be planning some sort of migration to fill that gap and reclaim that old territory.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Or it could be a confluence of both of these ideas, and perhaps other factors we haven’t even begun to consider yet.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think at least at first, Hell is going to be in the same sort of leaderless upheaval that Heaven’s been experiencing for the last number of years. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes in comparison.
>>>> 
>>>> Yeah. At this point the only card still on the table (assuming Lucifer doesn’t give a crap about hell now that he doesn’t have Crowley anymore to play with, and no other demon can provide him the challenge/fun Crowley did, obviously) is Asmodeus but clearly if he never showed up he has been busy with something he deems way more interesting than hell.
>>>> 
>>>> Lbr ruling hell is not worth anything in itself. Azazel and Lilith had a purpose, and that purpose was pretty much bring on the destruction of the system as it was. In their eyes the apocalypse would be a total upgrade for demons (“we’re going to heaven Clarence”) and without that kind of goal in mind, what’s even the point of running hell? Demons followed Lucifer’s generals because hell sucked and Lucifer meant ‘salvation’ for them. Of course they grew tired of Crowley, because Crowley was an administrator, not a messianic figure or a prophet for one. Hell is hell for demons, so why would they care about making it run well? Demon Dean was supposed to be that element that would “heighten” Crowley’s rule (it sure was a fascinating idea, wasn’t it - Dean Winchester as hell’s beautiful, powerful, terrifying  ~~queen~~  prince consort…) but it turned out that that plan wasn’t viable, and the demons only witnessed Crowley bumbling around Dean instead, which ended up harming him.
>>>> 
>>>> So at this point hell either gets someone who gives the demons a new promise of elevation* or Something** happens.
>>>> 
>>>> * Lucifer doesn’t care. Asmodeus, from what we heard from Ramiel, was kinda cold towards Azazel’s mission, so why would he care now. Rowena, in case she turns up either alive or demonic, hates demons just as much as Crowley did… We’re kinda left with Jack, whose story, maybe in a ‘crap he’s choosing the wrong things right now’ phase, might bring him to retrace, in some way, his father’s journey before learning better, and his path might cross with hell’s.
>>>> 
>>>> ** Hell gets closed / demons gets mass-slaughtered/cured (remember the ‘Sam goes on a mission to cure demons’ idea that hung in the air all those hiatuses ago? Might come back as we approach his endgame arc.)/transferred to another dimension or whatever and hell gets closed or something. Honestly I am not sure I’d like Wayward Sister to feature a major hell storyline, hell is too central to the “regular” Supernatural plot and just drop the hell story into the spin-off sounds meh to me.
>>>> 
>>>> Thoughts?
>>> 
>>> I don’t know if Rowena wouldn’t really care if she WAS one of those demons. We’ve seen her searching for comfort/security/power throughout her time on the show, and as a demon, what’s to say that she wouldn’t still carry those ambitions? And her hatred of demons from before could prove interesting if she found herself AS a demon, you know? It was just an interesting thought experiment, more than a serious speculation.
>>> 
>>> And yeah, the Wayward Sisters thought was entirely based on a stray comment at SDCC that used the word “hellmouth” to describe the setup for the WS storyline. Who knows how literal that description will prove to be? :D
>> 
>> Yeah, well, but wouldn’t that be just Crowley 2.0? Even if she came back as a demon she wouldn’t be fond of demons more than Crowley did during his stint as leader of hell. She would just roll her eyes the entire time and wish she could be doing something more interesting with her time than dealing with potentially treacherous dumbasses. Sure, she wouldn’t make Crowley’s mistakes (being seen as weak) but… would she like that? Just keep living her life pretending she doesn’t have weaknesses? Isn’t just what she’s been doing all along? Sure she’s good at it but at what cost?
>> 
>> And well idk. I think something major needs to happen regarding hell and heaven before the regular Spn wraps up, sure that doesn’t mean they have to fix everything in the universe. But hell? Giving WS a major hell storyline would mean that the Winchesters have failed at the one thing their story has been about since minute 1. Sure I’m just spitballing here.
> 
> I’m of two minds on that.  Like, yeah, the Winchesters’ story is one about being tossed back and forth by Heaven and Hell, and their original mission was tracking down the demon who killed Mary and Jessica, but…I think over time that’s kind of shifted?  You can make their overall narrative about it, but I don’t know that after Dean chose Sam over closing Hell that it needs to be.
> 
> You also get into a weird place in terms of worldbuilding if you’re going to do a spinoff if you eliminate Hell/Heaven as forces that push humanity from both sides.  Like, what is Supernatural even if it’s not about the relationships among ordinary people who spend their lives being extraordinary for the benefit of others?

Yeah… I was just gonna let this post stand as is, but then I read some other speculation about Heaven and Hell that I just don’t wanna touch with a 10 foot pole, but I’ve gotta put my feelings on it SOMEWHERE, and where better than on my own original post. :P

Heaven and Hell are part of the balance of this universe. s11 was about restoring balance, but ended with Amara returning Mary to life and setting off an entirely new cosmic imbalance (along with not actually killing Lucifer in 11.22, which I will never not be unhappy about, but that’s neither here nor there for this post).

Heaven and Hell have existed since the beginning of creation. Just like God and the Darkness, you can’t have one without the other (and you can’t just get rid of either or both of them and continue to have creation as we know it).

Every time that balance has been tinkered with– by Azazel flooding the earth with demons in 2.22 (because demons existed on Earth before the Hellgate was opened AND THEN IMMEDIATELY SLAMMED SHUT AGAIN… and a reminder that that Hellgate was not the same thing as “the Gates of Hell” that they were trying to seal up in s8), by the angels and demons pushing for the apocalypse in s4 and s5, by Cas screwing with Purgatory in s6, by the Leviathans in s7, by SAM AND DEAN committing their biggest act of hubris in s8 and trying to close the gates of hell, by Metatron dumping the angels out of Heaven, by Sam orchestrating the spell that would remove the Mark of Cain and release the darkness… screwing with the natural order NEVER makes this better.

In 12.23 Crowley made an offer:

**CROWLEY** : After we put Lucifer back in his cage– together– I’ll seal the gates of Hell. You’ll never see another demon again, apart from, of course, yours truly.

They let him stick around while they did their research on tracking down Kelly and Cas, but then when it came time to go through with the “deal” Crowley had offered, Dean pinned him to the table with the demon knife. So much for doing things together…

Part of me hopes to heck this is because his offer was an act of hubris, even suggesting they could or SHOULD close the gates of Hell. Like, have y’all not learned ANYTHING?!

So yeah, I think unless they intend to just… implode the entire universe as a series finale, Heaven and Hell are going to remain realms that can and will intersect with Earthly goings-on.

Because the Winchesters’ story has never been about them fixing or eliminating Heaven and Hell, but about their overcoming the destiny set upon them. They did that back in s5 when they stopped the apocalypse. And several more times since then.

But with talk about what their legacy might be, I hope it’s more along the lines of understanding that balance between humans and monsters, the balance between heaven and hell, the understanding that all of these things exist and that they don’t need to be utterly destroyed in order to continue to coexist.

Or maybe I’m too overly ambitious in my hopes for how this dumb show might end someday…

But really I hope they don’t override everything they’ve ever learned about hubris and balance just to have some cheap blaze of glory ending where Sam and Dean reject everything they know about free will and override the will of the collective universe to lock away an entire dimension of reality. I’d at least like to think they learned THAT much.\

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [hubris is bad](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hubris-is-bad) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [like whoa i had a horrifying reaction to a headcanon and no do not want do not want so sorry for the blarghing here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/like-whoa-i-had-a-horrifying-reaction-to-a-headcanon-and-no-do-not-want-do-not-want-so-sorry-for-the-blarghing-here)

 

[Aug 29, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164766921885/sometimes-i-wonder-if-the-demons-slowed-down-time)

116 notes

**Anonymous asked: Sometimes I wonder if the demons slowed down time specifically for Dean. Like, if they knew they needed him to say yes so they made each month feel like 10 years. Maybe John really was only in hell for 8 months. Maybe Sam was only there for a year. But Dean feels like a failure because he assumes each month felt like a decade for them and neither of them cracked the way he did.**

[flyingfish1](http://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/post/164760906308/sometimes-i-wonder-if-the-demons-slowed-down-time):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164753626580/sometimes-i-wonder-if-the-demons-slowed-down-time):
>
>> I mean, could be. The other parts of Hell that we’ve seen (specifically Sam’s trip to find Bobby in 8.19, and even their little meeting in 11.09 and the trip to the Limbo Cage in 11.10) have shown no indication that Hell Time overall runs any different from “earth time.” But you’re right on that count– we really don’t know if all of Hell runs on one set time, or maybe different parts of Hell run on different schedules, or even if some of the more powerful demons (like maybe Alistair…) are able to manipulate time or the perception of time to their needs.
>> 
>> For some reason I’m now specifically thinking of this part of Hell and feeling a twinge of agony just imagining it:
>> 
>> (screencap from [this post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164660133365/wifihunters-can-we-talk-about-the-fact-that-in))
>> 
>> I guess in a line that long there’s no reason to make time seem any more drawn out. Probably saves energy to not have to mess with time itself and just create excruciating boredom through natural means… 
>> 
>> But on that note, I can’t imagine that the time dilation wasn’t something that Lucifer would’ve been able to control in the cage either. We just never heard from Sam what his perception of his time in Hell was. It was horrifying enough to know he was there in the cage at all, you know?
>> 
>> Nor do we know what John’s perception of time was. And you’re right– ever since Alistair used the fact that John never broke to torment Dean in 4.16, I’ve wondered about how easily John managed to escape when the Devil’s Gate was opened in 2.22. I mean, I wondered that at the time I first saw 2.22, but didn’t have the context of Dean’s experiences on the rack in Alistair’s care, nor the fact that John had supposedly been receiving the same sort of hospitality that Dean had, tied to the rack and tortured every day and never breaking (supposedly). If that had been the case, then  _how did John escape through the Devil’s Gate in 2.22_?
>> 
>> So yeah, I’ve always tried to find a headcanon that sort of covered all of this, but I’ll give you the fact that “time being malleable rather than fixed” does lend some support to the theory that John’s experience in Hell was in no way similar to Dean’s.
>> 
>> It’s all technically retcon-y anyway, from the point of much later canon (like 4.22 that shows us how Azazel got his orders from Lucifer to find Lilith, and take instructions from her on how to free him from the cage… which started with the “special children” and ended with the opening of the Devil’s Gate to free Lilith  _specifically_ … because that’s when she showed up in canon as the “new leader rising in the west,” to quote Tammi the demon in 3.09). Since the apocalypse arc hadn’t been in the plans back when the Special Children and YED were the Big Story of s2, they salvaged what they could and sorta handwaved the rest, leaving us these big ??? moments to fill in for ourselves. Not really fanfiction gaps, but at the very least headcanon gaps. :P
>> 
>> Which leaves us with Dean’s experience of 40 years of torture over four months of Earth time combined with Alistair’s taunting line in 4.16, that he’d had John on the rack and he never broke. Which makes the fact that John not only walked out through the Devil’s Gate in 2.22, but that his soul was intact enough for him to float up to heaven after helping to kill Azazel… How much was he honestly tortured, and for how long?
>> 
>> It took an army of angels to free Dean from Alistair’s tender care, how the heckeroo did John not only stroll out the door, but more urgently  _how was he not mostly demonized by the experience?_  He looked pretty… not-horrifically-tortured for near-on a century, you know? ([x](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D44%26pid%3D182605%23top_display_media&t=YTcwNDNkZjM0NGQ0MjlkOWEyMjVhZDRkYTM0ZDk3NDQzZGY3MmEwOCxqUU0zVktCZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F164766921885%2Fsometimes-i-wonder-if-the-demons-slowed-down-time&m=1))
>> 
>> It’s interesting though, because we do know that LILITH had her own agenda after 2.22, to send her mole Ruby to infiltrate the Winchesters’ trust and begin readying Sam to break the final seal. (which again was not the plan at the time 2.22 aired– the original plan was for Sam to save Dean from his deal, but then s3 was cut short by six episodes by the Writer’s Strike and they didn’t have enough time to make that happen, so they went with plan B and sent Dean to Hell anyway… yadda yadda enter the Angels… so we get to find fun theories to explain away Real World Production Issues with wild headcanon. I actually love doing this… just a stroll through my [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming%20canon%20acrobatics) tag is proof of that.)
>> 
>> So we know Azazel was the one who Lucifer tasked with setting up all the pieces and eventually freeing Lilith, but what if Lilith (or even Lucifer) needed Azazel to die after that point? He’d fulfilled his role, and just like Lilith needed to die to complete her role in 4.22, what if Azazel needed to die to complete his in 2.22?
>> 
>> Lilith and Alistair both had those creepy white eyes. What if they were in cahoots with regard to making sure John Winchester was ready and waiting to walk out that Devil’s Gate when Lilith made her escape, knowing that he would be key in helping make sure Dean killed Azazel? Then with Azazel dead, John’s debt to hell fulfilled, he was able to just boop off to heaven in a burst of white light, no demonic damage to his soul at all… Kinda seems weird given what Dean related about his own personal experiences in Hell…
>> 
>> But gosh wouldn’t that suggestion in 4.16 hurt Dean, to think of what he himself became during his relatively short time in hell compared to what John endured and was still able to waltz off to heaven afterward with no stain on his soul. Probably went a long way toward making Dean feel like a failure. Again.
>> 
>> So, yeah, I totally buy the “Hell Time is flexible and not fixed exclusively to Dean’s description of his own experience there.”
>> 
>> Because it doesn’t line up with any other glimpse of Hell we’ve ever had.
>> 
>> Well, this went through some detours to get to the point. :P
> 
> [I have often wondered if Alastair let John out because they knew they needed BROTHERS](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/I-have-often-wondered-if-Alastair-let-John-out-because-they-knew-they-needed-BROTHERS)[I BET Azazel new the vessels thing because he talked directly to Lucifer](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/I-BET-Azazel-new-the-vessels-thing-because-he-talked-directly-to-Lucifer)[and in 4x03 he’s pleased Dean has a sibling and that suits him even better](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/and-in-4x03-he%27s-pleased-Dean-has-a-sibling-and-that-suits-him-even-better)[and Jake had a sister who probably would have had to break a seal if he had been the winner](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/and-Jake-had-a-sister-who-probably-would-have-had-to-break-a-seal-if-he-had-been-the-winner)[although Azazel knew all along it was really meant to be Sam even in season 2 he was saying he was the best](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/although-Azazel-knew-all-along-it-was-really-meant-to-be-Sam-even-in-season-2-he-was-saying-he-was-the-best)[*pauses a moment in memory of Jake*](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Apauses-a-moment-in-memory-of-Jake%2A)[so yeah if he just lightly tortured John for funsies but was ready to let him go in order to swap him for Dean…](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/so-yeah-if-he-just-lightly-tortured-John-for-funsies-but-was-ready-to-let-him-go-in-order-to-swap-him-for-Dean...)[who had already made his deal and was locked in at that point…](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/who-had-already-made-his-deal-and-was-locked-in-at-that-point...) (via [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/))
> 
> That makes sense, actually! And there’s also Bobby, who was in Hell for… let’s see. His ghost was banished at the end of season seven, then there was a year’s time jump in between 7x23 and 8x01, then Bobby finally gets rescued and sent to Heaven in 8x19… That’s, what? Two years in Hell? A year and a half, maybe? When we see him, he’s not in the  _best_  shape, but he doesn’t look as if he’s been tortured for 180-240 years.  ~~I mean, it’s bucklemming canon, but still~~  And he’s certainly not anywhere near becoming a demon.

[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [reblobbed again for excellent additional commentary](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/reblobbed-again-for-excellent-additional-commentary)

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [spn 2.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.22) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [spn 3.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.09) [spn 8.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.19) [spn 11.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.09) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20)

 

[Oct 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166581882930/since-cas-has-died-before-would-that-mean-hes)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: Since Cas has died before, would that mean he's already been to The Empty but just doesn't remember it? The whole concept of the place I find quite confusing... like if angels go there when they die then surely it's not empty, more like an angel shindig. The not-so-empty Empty! Hurts my head xD**

This is one of the reasons I did the side-eye at the whole notion of Cas being in the Empty in the first place. I mean, from how Billie described it, it was dissolution and nothingness. Basically the ABSENCE of being. Not a literal “place” you could go. More like, ~atoms scattered to the winds~ kind of nothingness.

We have no idea what happened to Cas the previous times he’s died. Maybe Chuck scooped him up in a net and never let him get that far in the first place before bringing him back.

So as much as I love Scout’s Walmart-E comics, I don’t really think there’s any “there” there, you know?

The fact that Cas is even conscious of what’s happening to him wherever he is (and it probabyl IS the empty) likely means that some force is interfering with his complete dissolution into nothingness, and holding him together for some cosmic reason, at least long enough for us to see what he’s experiencing there…

Could be he’s just inside the Empty’s front door, so to speak. He’s in the reception room where the disintegration process is slated to begin, and hasn’t quite crossed the threshhold yet? He was quite clear that there were no other beings present there (aside from the mysterious entity he interacts with, which… I’m really tending to think is just some aspect of himself…). We just don’t know!

I really can’t wait to see how they explain everything to us! Honestly this has probably been consuming way too much of my thoughts since we first heard about it back in July. :P

[spn 13.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.03) [spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [i'm not sure which episodes will cover this so I'm just throwing them all on here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-not-sure-which-episodes-will-cover-this-so-I%27m-just-throwing-them-all-on-here) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Nov 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167099016105/hi-i-was-the-anon-a-bit-freaked-out-by-campy-cas)

32 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! I was the anon a bit freaked out by Campy Cas last night. Upon further reflection today, what persona do you think that was meant to be? Was that really supposed to be some manifestation of Castiel? Or since the episode dealt with shape shifters, perhaps that black form oozed into being to resemble Cas’ form in order to mess with him rather than appear as it actually looks? I don’t know, that whole persona seemed too OTT to be any dimension of the real Cas.**

Hi! I don’t know if I replied to you already (I’ve had… a metric buttload of messages in the last 24 hours, and I’m having a heck of a time trying to answer everyone, and trying to remember what I’ve already answered… oops)

I’ve read a bunch of different suggestions on what Qstiel (I like that description both for accuracy and ease of typing) was trying to evoke… I like the interpretation that it was a sort of Cas-infused version of Alistair… I definitely didn’t see it as “Campy.”

I think it was a manifestation of the Empty itself (we saw it assemble itself from the substance of the empty) that took on Cas’s face because Cas was the only “consciousness” there for it to latch on to. The Empty was acting as a Dark Mirror for Cas, pulling on the “darkest” aspects of him, and yet  _not_  actually him. Yet the things it attempted to use as a weapon to control and put Cas back to sleep WERE Cas’s “darkest” memories. It tapped into his deepest fears (that who he loved might also be the source of what he feared…)

And in that respect, Qstiel served a similar function that Alistair did for Dean. But that wasn’t ALL Qstiel was… there was a bit of Amara gently inviting Dean to give up his humanity and become one with the Darkness (with the gentle “sleep and be at peace” stuff), and even a bit of Death with the whole “I’m a cosmic entity you can’t even BEGIN to comprehend you insignificant germ” sort of attitude.

So while it looked like Cas, and used Castiel’s memories as ammunition, it wasn’t just “some aspect of Cas himself.” It was this separate entity formed from the Empty.

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) 

 

[Nov 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167122805925/thank-you-for-your-insights-on-what-the-empty)

32 notes

**Anonymous asked: Thank you for your insights on what the Empty creature’s characterization was about. The depiction threw me off I think because I was imagining it was going to be Cas confronting himself like Dean vs. Dean or Sam vs. Sam did. I see now it was supposed to be disturbing because it was the Empty taking Cas’ form to torment him. You always offer such great perspectives. Now I’m kind of giggling because Misha teased he would confront a great actor in the Empty. :) He sure got me with that Qstiel!**

Aw, thanks! Glad I could help!

And yeah, I mean, surface-level, it was  _visually_  Cas vs Cas. But Qstiel was an entity of the Empty (or perhaps a manifestation of the empty itself).

The Empty also functioned the way the  _threat_  of the empty always has, as well. The same way Amara’s offer to become one with her. In 11.09, Amara even described the absolute oblivion Dean experienced when she kissed him as “the future,” and told him that the souls she consumed lived forever within her… in that state of oblivion. Her offer to Dean sounded so creepily like the vision Jack’s power showed Cas in 12.19:

**Amara** : What if there were no rules? No pain. No prayer. Just  _bliss_. That feeling that you have when you’re with me. [Amara moves closer to Dean]. For everyone. Forever.

It’s a metaphor for depression and the annihilation of self that the show has used for AGES, and it has never been presented as a  _good thing_. And yet… Dean was tempted, because those are the tempting lies depression is incredibly sneaky with…

**Dean** : You’re right. I am drawn to you. And it bothers the hell out of me, ‘cause I can’t control it.  
 **Amara** : Then why fight it? What you’re feeling is that I am the end of your struggle. Something stops you. Keeps you from having it all.

But Cas, at that point in 12.19 when he was at his lowest, when he felt entirely useless and couldn’t even do one thing right, was suddenly presented with the same offer. And he couldn’t refuse. Nothing else mattered anymore.

He bought into the lie of depression, and yet… once he found that peace, that paradise, where there was no pain and no want and no huger or no suffering, he saw through the lie.

I like to think that Jack’s power “awakening” him there was a direct result of Jack learning that it was his power that lured Cas to that end in the first place. Like THAT was the moment Jack freed Cas from the compulsion to run toward that vision. Because Jack’s power  _didn’t save Cas_. He was already saved. He had the power to fight against the Empty because of who HE is, just like Dean had the power to fight off Amara’s offer because of who HE is…

(you’ll all kindly take note that in the empty, Cas never once mentioned that he needed to return to Earth because  _Jack_  needed him… okay, move along then.)

Back to the Empty, and Qstiel… It effectively acted AS a mirror of Cas, by digging through his memories and finding reason for Cas to just give in and go back to sleep, to fulfil that promise Jack’s power originally made, but Cas refused to succumb again. He’s finally made a definitive stand for  _himself_. And it brought him back into the sunshine.

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F)[depression](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/depression) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 11.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.09) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Nov 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167126120815/elizabethrobertajones-i-know-i-dont-really)

[Nov 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167215761805/dorkilysoulless-mittensmorgul)

99 notes

[dorkilysoulless](https://dorkilysoulless.tumblr.com/post/167214869177/mittensmorgul-elizabethrobertajones-i-know-i):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167126120815/elizabethrobertajones-i-know-i-dont-really):
>
>> [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/167122278443/i-know-i-dont-really-speculate-but-i-sort-of-want):
>>
>>> I know I don’t really speculate but I sort of want to put one random joke I made into an actual serious point:
>>> 
>>> Reaper Retcon no. like 56: they’re actually aligned with/working for The Empty now we know what it is.
>> 
>> This actually fits in with the “Death wasn’t just a dude in a vessel, but just one facet the larger universal concept of death that manifested in conjunction with the universe coming into being that necessitated a concept for what ~is being~ eventually coming to an end”
>> 
>> (do I need to haul out all my theoretical physics and Sartre tags that came into being when the concept of the Darkness was introduced again? I think I might…)
>> 
>> As long as there is BEING there has to be an opposite thing… NOTHINGNESS. If there’s Light, there must be Dark. If there’s Chuck, there has to be Amara. If there’s Heaven there must be Hell. If there’s angels to watch over creation, there must be reapers to bring human souls to their eventual end…
>> 
>> So if Amara’s Darkness is just a reflection of the Empty (and they have been explained as different incarnations of the same thing, or at least using the same language), it’s no wonder that Amara didn’t recognize this “Death” that Dean described to her on their first meeting in the Darknado. (sue me, I just watched that episode yesterday)
>> 
>> That would fit that the rest of the reapers were just sort of spinoffs of this larger concept of the Empty. Like, matter vs antimatter, they’re just little spinoffs of the Darknado, focused on smaller bits of creation.
>> 
>> I swear this makes perfect sense inside my head, but these are huge concepts that kind of defy a simplistic, pithy explanation. :P
> 
> See, I’m not quite ready to make that jump.  I’m reading it thus:   
> 
> \- The Empty is the primordial Void/Chaos, which is timeless and frankly shouldn’t be a place at all but more of a state of non-being/non-order/non-life, except that somebody gave it an observer, and…well, observation can change things.  We know that angels and demons return to this state upon their death; I would guess beings killed in Purgatory, dead gods, etc., might also? 
> 
> \- Chuck and Amara are the Divine Twins.  They’re a Light/Darkness and Creation/Destruction dyad, and neither exists without the other, nor does Reality as we understand it (as evidenced by the consequences of Amara nearly killing Chuck).  The Empty is not beholden to them, but on some level may be a precursor for them via Amara?
> 
> \- Death arises as a consequence of creation, but whether that’s the emergence of the Twins (who  _exist_  and  _can die)_  or later creation is unclear.  I lean toward Death emerging as a consequence of the Twins because their dominions include Death as a consequence of Creation/Destruction.  
> 
> \- Presumably the other three Horsemen come into this somehow, though I think we can safely argue that they’re subordinate manifestations, i.e. forces which lead to Death.  Like Death, the things they embody continue to exist after they are defeated/destroyed – disease, war, and famine are still real even after the Horsemen have lost their rings, and death did not take a holiday when Death took a bit of scythe.  
> 
> \- Reapers are created beings (later included as part of the angel superset) that carry out the work of Death, at least with regard to acting as psychopomps for living beings.  They’re the mechanism for the principle.
> 
> Obviously this could go a dozen ways – even the show rewrites itself from time to time – but this is how I’ve glued what we have so far together in my head via canon.

Yeah, I’d pinged to the Empty as not actually being a ~place~ until a consciousness was there to observe it (I wrote something about this earlier today), so I get that first bit.

But I was also thinking about how Death just…  _standing there_  and essentially  _letting Dean kill him_ … I don’t think that was an accident, but something that needed to happen before Amara could be freed. Mostly because I can’t get past her line about “I don’t know this Death.”

Which seemed highly significant ten minutes ago when I finished typing that last sentence and then kinda stared at the wall thinking about all of this too hard, and now I have no idea where I was headed next with this aside from the fact it somehow ties in with the MoC and this thread of ~Darkness~ that came from the lock entrusted to the “brightest” angel (the one named Light ffs), and ow my brain hurts now.

*waves hand at everything and wanders off*

[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

[i texted my friend 'i like death' but it looked so disconcerting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-texted-my-friend-%27i-like-death%27-but-it-looked-so-disconcerting) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [Death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle) [(yes that is my tag for reapers sue me)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%28yes-that-is-my-tag-for-reapers-sue-me%29) [i should've made a sartre tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-should%27ve-made-a-sartre-tag) [sometimes i compare this show to einstein and sartre and sometimes it's all just looney tunes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sometimes-i-compare-this-show-to-einstein-and-sartre-and-sometimes-it%27s-all-just-looney-tunes) [i never in a billion years would've thought i'd quote einstein and nasa in a supernatural meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-never-in-a-billion-years-would%27ve-thought-i%27d-quote-einstein-and-nasa-in-a-supernatural-meta) [but i'm still rolling around in Being and Nothingness here you'll have to pardon the dust left over from my spontaneous combustion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i%27m-still-rolling-around-in-Being-and-Nothingness-here-you%27ll-have-to-pardon-the-dust-left-over-from-my-spontaneous-combustion)

 

[Nov 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167163949260/may-i-ask-why-you-refer-to-the-emptycas-as)

47 notes

**[fpwoper](https://fpwoper.tumblr.com/) asked: May I ask why you refer to the Empty!Cas as Q/Qstiel? Is this a universally adopted name for the Empty!Cas or is it a way to tell them apart? Pls help me I'm confused.**

Since I’ve seen dozens of people confused about this… it started as an offhand comment someone made about how the Empty Being resembled the character Q on Start Trek TNG.  I *personally* don’t know enough about Star Trek to confirm or deny the comparison, but I read several posts explaining the character and what similarities they shared, and “Qstiel” or just “Q” was SO MUCH EASIER to type than “the Empty being who manifested itself with Cas’s visage,” and a lot less gross than “the Empty Goo Dude.”

Because Empty!Cas isn’t accurate. The “descriptor!person” convention always implies the thing before the bang is a characteristic inherent in the actual character whose name comes after the bang.

Soulless!Sam  _is actually Sam_ , but without his soul. Demon!Dean  _is actually Dean_ , but as a demon. Leviathan!Cas  _is actually Cas_ , but filled with the Leviathan…

In fic, I’ve seen Michael!Dean where Dean said yes to Michael, but Michael is still occupying actual!Dean.

So saying Empty!Cas would imply that Castiel HIMSELF was possessed BY the Empty, and that’s not what happened at all…

I guess it could logically be Cas!Empty, but that’s just confusing…

Point is, it’s a separate entity FROM Cas, who only used Cas’s appearance to manifest itself. It’s not inherently part of Cas.

So giving it a separate identity while discussing it is not only more efficient, it’s more accurate. And since we don’t have a name for it, and it represented itself as a temporarily personified facet of the entire dimension itself, Q apparently covers all that in a single keystroke. (Well, okay, two keystrokes if you count the shift key…) :P

[qstiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/qstiel) [heaven hell purgatory and the empt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)y

 

[Nov 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167174551275/when-cas-woke-up-at-the-end-of-the-episode-he)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: When Cas woke up at the end of the episode he acted like he didnt see light for a very long time. What if time moved differently in the empty and Cas spent years, decades there?**

Meh… I mean, he was technically “asleep” until he was booped awake there at the end of 13.03… I think the notion of time passing is irrelevant in a place like the empty where there’s no consciousness to observe it, you know?

Time is a construct, and all that. It doesn’t exist in a place where ~stuff~ doesn’t exist, you know?

Now, once Cas “woke up” he was technically “on the clock” again, because he was conscious. And he had his own light source in the Empty, he wasn’t in total darkness, just surrounded by total darkness. I think the only “time” he was aware of there was that “awake” time. And by the end of that conversation, he’d been booted back to Earth.

My guess? He was just basking in his victory, grateful to be alive and having the sun shine down on him at all, you know? Because even if billions of years had passed while he’d been literally unconscious there, it wouldn’t have felt like any time at all to him… because he’d been not-conscious to experience it.

So I don’t think it’s of any relevance, particularly.

Not like Sam passing out at the end of 6.13, because he wasn’t ~devoid of consciousness~ he was having a flashback to the cage. So while Dean observed him for a few minutes and Sam thought it felt like a week, it’s because he was actively reliving the trauma via a crack in the “wall” Death erected between Sam and his “hell damage.”

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [spn 6.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.13) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [time is an illusion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/time-is-an-illusion) [and doesn't exist in a place like the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-doesn%27t-exist-in-a-place-like-the-empty) [unless there's a consciousness present to impose it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/unless-there%27s-a-consciousness-present-to-impose-it) [this is a weird question and i like it :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-weird-question-and-i-like-it-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Nov 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167215120330/hi-im-kinda-new-and-a-little-shy-hence-the)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi. I’m kinda new and a little shy - hence the anon😀. I looked for an answer to this and couldn’t really find one. Did we ever get an explanation of why, resolution to the story of, or any consequences of Dean killing Death? Thanks**

Hi, and welcome!

There’s been a number of theories, beginning with killing “Death” doesn’t actually change any of the metaphysics surrounding “death,” Because in that “vessel” he was just a physical manifestation of a universal physical concept. As long as things exist, things will eventually ~cease~ to exist.

There are still reapers hard at work, people are still dying in the SPN universe, you know? Killing the representative of the concept of Death didn’t change that.

What I personally enjoy are the recent discussions linking reapers, Death, Amara, and the Empty as different representatives of the same concept, like if Chuck is “matter” than the opposite is “anti-matter.”

The recent discussions on all of this are in my Empty tag (which also covers the other planes of existence/afterlife on SPN, but the most recent posts in there are the ones that cover this discussion).

[spn 10.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.23) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [i texted my friend 'i like death' but it looked so disconcerting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-texted-my-friend-%27i-like-death%27-but-it-looked-so-disconcerting)

 

[Nov 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167467583410/something-that-just-occurred-to-me-is-that-both)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: Something that just occurred to me is that both Dean and Cas have been reborn within an episode of each other (going with the classic idea that dying and coming back is a kind of baptism or rebirth in storytelling). Do you see any significance in that going forward, or as it relates to their characters?**

Absolutely, yes.

Both Cas and Dean have died before (kind of a lot, especially in Dean’s case. I mean I’m wondering how many of those file folders on Billie’s shelves there were JUST Dean’s deaths in 3.11…)

But now they’ve both just passed through their own experiences of death in some strikingly significant ways in back-to-back episodes. If anyone thinks that’s NOT significant, I invite them to read a book. Any book. I mean, gotta start understanding how human storytelling works somewhere, and maybe Supernatural isn’t the easiest place to begin that journey. :P

Cas was in the Empty, confronting a cosmic entity wearing his own face, hammering away at his own fears (and who he loves), trying to badger Cas into rolling over and accepting his fate and letting go of life altogether. Dean was in the veil talking with the new incarnation of Death about his own life and death and his place in the universe, having some of his worst fears and most depressing realities held up to the light, and being told that despite having tried to take his own life that he still had work to do, that he was too important to die yet.

And I find it fascinating because since Cas died we’ve been getting little hints about what Cas may experience in death. We have long wondered where angels (and demons, and presumably monsters in purgatory and anyone other than regular old humans) go when they die, and now we know. The Empty. But I’d also put forth the theory that maybe it wasn’t the empty, but the Veil that we’d finally get to see, and then hey… 13.04 showed us the Empty, and 13.05 showed us the Veil.

The veil was where souls had been trapped, unable to go on to Heaven (in theory) between 8.23 when Metatron locked the gates and 11.23 when Billie raided the veil for the Soul Bomb and then Chuck sent all those souls back to Heaven (in theory, again). We’d always seen ghosts, and we’d HEARD about the mysterious “veil” that Kevin talked about, being able to communicate with other nearby ghosts, and that it was “crowded” in there, but we’d never really SEEN it as a separate place, or a separate layer of existence that ghosts could experience, aside from just haunting the mortal plane. I really enjoyed seeing that too.

Anyway, yeah. I can’t wait to see how they each react to their experiences of having been dead for a bit, and what it will mean from them now that they are BOTH alive again, and now that they both KNOW they’re both alive again. :D

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [i never really had a tag for the veil but that tag should probably be extended to cover it :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-never-really-had-a-tag-for-the-veil-but-that-tag-should-probably-be-extended-to-cover-it-%3AP)


	55. Chapter 55

[Jan 22, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170021114475/i-made-a-post-on-this-but-i-wanted-to-get-your)

37 notes

**[ikindamaybewanthertositonmyface](http://ikindamaybewanthertositonmyface.tumblr.com/) asked: I made a post on this, but I wanted to get your opinion on it. Those shots of Kaia's body back in the bad place they interlaced with distraught Claire, those so weren't just to show why Claire is upset, we know why. There was some special purpose to their being shown, I don't know what, but one thing I spotted which may just be me seeing things, but is it just me or when it shows the up close shot of the wound itself, did it look to you like her blood all of a sudden stopped flowing out?**

AH! There’s so much going on in the last few minutes of the episode, both between what happens right before they run back through the rift, going right through the end when Darth Kaia opens a new rift for herself and pops up in a park…

I covered some of the parallels referenced here, but I haven’t really talked about what’s going on here in its own right. I know you asked this a while back now, and because it’s taken me so long to get around to properly answering we’ve kind of rambled back and forth in the chattybubbles about it a bit, but for the purposes of putting all my thoughts down in one place… congrats this ask message won the Random Meta Spiel of the Week award, and as such will contain a lot… A lot of what? Words, mostly. Some pictures.

I wish we had more canon. We NEED Wayward to get picked up if only to address these Huge Looming Questions, because I think they managed to raise more questions than answers here, which is really what a good pilot episode should do, but it’s still annoying in the short-term, not knowing when they’ll pick up the story again. :P

OKAY, ON TO THE POINT!

Actually, not quite yet. I’m still waiting for HotN to finish screencapping the episode, because I think this will definitely merit some side by side comparisons, but they’re only up to the scene where Darth Kaia rings the “dinner bell,” so I’ve got to kill a little bit more time, because I have zero ability to screencap myself. Someday I will figure out how to connect my dvr to my laptop and make this happen, but in the meantime nobody wants Mittens Quality Screencaps (aka pics I take of my tv screen with my phone), but I will resort to that if absolutely necessary in this case. :P

So let’s start point-adjacent anyway.

First off, this is a HUGE deal for Patience herself, regarding her understanding of her own visions. She’d spent most of her life trying to suppress, ignore, and explain away her visions. First off, this “misinterpretation” of her vision might very well provide HER a sense of healing over the vision her father held against Missouri all her life, and it also gives US some ability to understand that these psychic visions aren’t always a complete picture of the entirety of a situation. Something to keep in mind going forward in Wayward Sisters  ~~if~~  when it gets picked up as a full series. :D

The scraps of Patience’s vision we saw at the beginning of the episode certainly could lead one to believe that it was Claire who was killed, and Jody was cradling Claire’s body. But the vision itself was so disjointed and confusing (giant monster skull? weird spooky forest place? creepy spear stabbing?) that without the key pieces of information that  _there would be other people involved in that scene_ , Patience  _couldn’t_  know her vision was incomplete, you know? She was just making the best guess on what would happen without the entire context.

And she wasn’t  _terribly_ far off the truth, but just far enough to keep everyone from understanding what her vision was actually predicting…

No wonder Patience looked so spooked when Claire showed up, you know? She’s never met Claire before, and yet had this vision of her death so terrifying that she ditched school, left home after the warning that she might not be able to come back from hunting once she started down that road, left everything she’d ever hoped or planned for her own future behind and drove like 1200 miles to Jody’s to do what she could to help.

WOW. That’s dedication. :’)

But then there’s what this all means to Claire. She’s been on her own for so long (since before 10.20, and then before that for most of her life), and she’s never really settled, never really completely bonded as a family with anyone, and yet one look at Kaia and she’s… doing everything in her power to protect/help/support this woman who’s had arguably a rougher life than even she has. In such a short time, they BOTH begin to trust in each other, which is groundbreaking for both of them.

And then everything goes straight to heck. Claire’s grief, her sense of failure, and now her motivation for revenge against the “thing that killed Kaia,” despite believing that “thing” was confined to an alternate universe that she has no way of returning to… that’s a powerful display of grief, you know?

Because Patience wasn’t far off in believing she’d witnessed Claire’s death. She didn’t physically die, but this small and fragile part of herself that had opened up to Kaia like she’d never opened up to anyone else before was stabbed through the side and left on the other side of an interdimensional portal. It was definitely a metaphorical death, and a metaphorical rebirth as Claire reinvested herself into her found family with Jody.

(which I hope portends Good Things for the eventual “rebirth” of Kaia in one way or another… and there are so many fantastic theories abounding on how that may come to pass… and on whether or not the Kaia who came through the portal at the end of the episode was Darth Kaia or possibly OUR Kaia– whether “shapeshifted” into Kaia, or just an AU version of her, or possibly some  “dark Kaia vs good Kaia” a la Charlie in 10.11, or even reunited parts of Kaia a la Sam in 6.22…)

And heck, that parenthetical was getting long, and that’s another tangent down which I would like to run before jumping back to the scene you asked about. (I know, sorry, but I think it’s important to keep these things in mind, since they do have bearing on how we might possibly view that scene with Kaia’s blood…)

Kaia’s spent her ENTIRE LIFE dreamwalking to The Bad Place (or at least as long as we know…) Can you imagine a small child Kaia, after losing her parents in tragic fashion as a child, and yet dreaming every night about this terrifying place filled with monsters who chase her and attack her when they catch her? No wonder her first instinct is to run away from them. But what she said about the Canids (because that’s what they’re called in the script, so let’s call them that here for ease of discussion), that where there’s one, there’s definitely more. That they travel in packs (which we see Donna discover in the “Hiya, buddy” scene… the look on her face fills in the “Oh, heck” for us).

But Sam and Dean were trapped in the Bad Place for at least two days, and apparently the most threatening thing they’d actually seen ended up spit-roasted and eaten. Their experience of the Bad Place was so fundamentally different from Kaia’s that it makes me wonder what the full nature of Kaia’s connection to that entire WORLD is, you know? Just how powerful a dreamwalker is she? And is that entire world potentially a creation of her own subconscious… if that makes sense. Hence Darth Kaia is the only human-shaped thing in that whole world.

When Patience has her vision of the monsters overrunning Jody’s house, Kaia immediately knows the monsters are after HER specifically. And they never really do any real harm to anyone OTHER than Kaia. Sure, the one at the hospital flings Claire out of the way, but it’s dead-set on getting to Kaia. Not just any creature will do, you know? It TARGETED Kaia specifically.

Sure, they kind of make a trashy mess of the ship (which was already kind of a trashy mess lbh), and they do a lot of property damage at Jody’s house, and they do a bit of light menacing to the other Waywards on the boat, who mostly pick them off like ducks at a shooting gallery while Kaia lays dying in the Bad Place.

What if they’ve killed ALL of those particular monsters now? Like, those were the only pack of them in the whole AU that’s otherwise populated by Darth Kaia and her pet Kaiju (and a variety of small roastable lizards)?

What if, as a dreamwalker, Kaia was powerful enough to not only visit another world, but to  _create_  that entire other world out of whole cloth?

What would that make Darth Kaia?

And what would become of that world when Kaia herself was killed there?

And what would that mean Darth Kaia even IS?

I know this is likely just the absolute wildest of speculation, but wouldn’t it be cool if it were true? :P

(this is officially my new pet theory)

(fight me)

(also brief pause for me to again scream about WHY THEY ALL STOPPED AND TURNED AROUND TO LOOK BEHIND THEM INSTEAD OF JUST RUNNING THROUGH THE PORTAL AND JUST… CONTINUING TO RUN AWAY FROM THE PORTAL LIKE WTF DUDES WHAT WERE YOU WAITING FOR?! THIS IS SOME LOT’S WIFE LOOKING BACK AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH SHIT RIGHT HERE)

*deep breaths mittens you can do this*

And now FINALLY to get back to your original question! WHEEE! *throws confetti and lizards*

As Patience and the others come into the room to find Jody cradling and comforting Claire, we cut back and forth between Claire crying and Kaia lying in the Bad Place.

Kaia’s hand, then Kaia’s body, Jody comforting Claire.

Kaia’s wound (so reminiscent of the wound Cas sustained in 12.12, too), bleeding, and then her face.

Jody and Claire, Kaia’s face.

Jody and Claire, Patience in Abject Shock, as we see her recall her vision and compare it to what she’s seeing in reality.

In her vision, it really does look like Claire is dead.

Flash to Patience, then to Jody and Claire flickering back and forth between the vision and reality, then back to Patience several times over as Patience slowly integrates the vision with the reality…

But I did watch the blood scene frame by frame, and droplets continue to flow until it cuts away to Kaia’s face. It’s such a short snippet of a shot, about 115 frames if I counted right… (which I suppose is a long shot of a wound bleeding, which makes me feel like it’s important regardless).

And heck, I didn’t even use any screencaps anyway. Well, would you look at that (or I guess, not look at it, since I didn’t use any to look at…)

I’m officially mentally fried now. That was some particularly wild spec. :P

[spn 13.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.10) [wild speculation hour with professor mittens](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wild-speculation-hour-with-professor-mittens) [kaia nieves](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kaia-nieves) [wayward sisters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wayward-sisters)[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [because i'm using that tag to cover all the various and sundry AU's the show sticks in canon :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i%27m-using-that-tag-to-cover-all-the-various-and-sundry-AU%27s-the-show-sticks-in-canon-%3AP) [patience turner](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/patience-turner) [claire novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/claire-novak)[ikindamaybewanthertositonmyface](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ikindamaybewanthertositonmyface)

 


	56. Chapter 56

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173130090465/am-i-dreaming-or-was-that-some-man-who-would-be)

63 notes

**Anonymous asked: Am I dreaming or was that some Man Who Would be King shots with Cas and the sand???**

Yeah, his hands were empty back in 6.20 though. Now he’s picked up the sand that had represented the portal to Heaven for the last few years, because once again it’s just sand. The portal sigil is gone, Heaven’s finally reached the point where it’s barely sustaining itself, and Cas’s mission to save Heaven back in s6 has become an entirely different kind of saving now.

He’s been through so much since then.

But his hands aren’t empty. He picked up the sand that had represented the gateway between Heaven and Earth and it crumbled to the ground.

His mission to “round up all the angels on Earth” from early s10, with Hannah, is now something very different. With only a few angels even LEFT on Earth, killing them for refusing to return isn’t really an option at this point, you know? And one of those angels is Gabriel… who Naomi was VERY interested in using to essentially power the grid in Heaven.

And heck if that isn’t creepy as all get-out.

Naomi told Cas that the angels left in Heaven COULDN’T leave. And heck… they all look freaking depressed. Which brings me to the HUGE elephant in the room: Where was Lucifer in that episode?

No, really, where was he? How did Naomi– presumed dead for five years now– suddenly return and regain control of the almost-zero population of angels? Did Lucifer actually just up and leave? He’d spent most of 13.18 just kinda lounging in the throne room, so is he really out there trying to find a way back to the AU now? Where is he? Last we saw was him sulking on the throne after Jo delivered this smackdown:

SISTER JO: So, humans don’t like you. Oh, wow. I’m sorry. Instead of bellyaching about it, why don’t you make Heaven right? Make good on your promises. Make angels. Give the existing ones their wings back.  
LUCIFER: Yeah, I-I can’t really do that.  
SISTER JO: What?  
LUCIFER: I lied, so, uh, just keep that to yourself, though, okay?  
SISTER JO: So, you know – It’s not the humans. It’s not the angels. It’s not your father’s propaganda that’s killing you. It’s your complete failure. You say you want to find your son, but you don’t. Not really. So, you sit there because you’re afraid. You’re afraid of him, afraid of looking into in his eyes and seeing nothing but contempt. You can’t replace your father. You can’t create anything. You have nothing. You might as well go back to the Cage.

And now Heaven’s breaking down due to the lack of angels to keep it running. None of the other angels even MENTIONED Lucifer. Castiel even warned Dumah that Lucifer was back when she first found him in Heaven, and she didn’t tell HIM in return that Luci had been up in Heaven, spending a few weeks sitting on the throne and mostly failing to do anything right up there. Indra at the playground didn’t mention the whole Lucifer-in-Heaven debacle either. As far as we know, nobody mentioned to Cas that Luci had been up there at all.

I don’t have any speculation yet on why that might be, but at the very least I think it’s critically important to remember. Because even bringing back Naomi seems significant in this respect. She was the angel responsible for messing with the memories and internal programming of pretty much every other angel ever. She was responsible for the death of so many others who wouldn’t fall into line. And now she’s referred to that horror she perpetrated as “simpler times” like she was nostalgic for it. Granted, she admitted to holes in her own memory, but the other thing the flickering lights in Heaven reminded me of? 9.18, when “Gabriel” popped in to Cas’s motel room and took him on an imaginary trip, but the entire time Cas had been actually kidnapped to Heaven and was sitting tied to a chair in Metatron’s office.

Heaven’s a tricksy place, you know? 

I don’t know what this might mean going forward, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind going forward. Basically, I don’t trust anything Cas experienced in Heaven, at least not entirely. There were too many things that were very pointedly and deliberately not said.

Like to the degree that the not-saying of these things is the-lights-are-flickering levels of flashing warning signs here.

[spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [spn 9.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.18) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)[lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn 13.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.18) [spn s10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10) [naomi](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/naomi) [gabriel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gabriel)

 

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173130916480/they-should-build-a-cage-in-heaven-and-but-crazy)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: They should build a cage in heaven and but crazy big brother Michael in it... and boom we have an archangel in heaven.**

Aah, if only angels were that practical.

The idea that Naomi was so creepily suggested almost exactly that but as regards Gabriel… I meant to get to this point specifically in the ask I just replied to, but as per usual I got detoured by like 9 other points and failed to get back to it >.>

But yeah, that was some kinda super creepy suggestion, right? That the fact that Gabriel is alive, the fact that the rest of the angels (according to Naomi) can’t leave Heaven or else it would completely break down… and then we have this conversation:

**Naomi:**  You wanna know why we can’t help you? because none of us can leave, We’re the only things keeping the lights on. Barely. We need everyone, especially an archangel. Now the others thought any archangel would do. Long story. But your news about Gabriel is… for lack of a better word, blessed. With his power, we can keep Heaven running.  
 **Castiel:**  And without him?  
 **Naomi:** Without him, in time, we’ll burn out. Heaven will crumble, and all the souls that have been entrusted to our care will fall back to Earth. Picture it, Castiel – billions upon billions of ghosts unleashed upon the world. All that chaos, all that death.

Kinda gives Cas some motivation here. He’s got a choice now, but how much of a choice is it really? I mean, he’d been on a mission to find Gabriel to convince him to use his power to help open the rift and rescue Mary and Jack. That had been Cas’s primary mission, and why he believed he’d been resurrected too. I mean he had a lot of his current self-identity tied into this mission.

And now it seems like ALL of Heaven’s hopes are resting on finding Gabriel to “use” him the same way they’d wanted to “use” Jack back in 13.07. And that had been horrifying to Cas. He’d refused to help bring Jack in to just be used that way to power up Heaven. But now that he’s seen what Heaven’s been reduced to (or at least what I suspect Lucifer wanted him to see in Heaven, because again, Heaven is a construct and to a large extent it’s malleable), and Naomi’s essentially suggested that the ONLY way to stop Heaven from completely falling apart and dumping all those human souls out onto the Earth is to essentially do exactly to Gabriel what they’d wanted to do with Jack early in the season. Plug him into the grid, hold him prisoner essentially, and literally use him like a giant heaven battery.

And just… ewwwwww. 

But it does present a moral quandary for Cas. We don’t actually know that what Naomi told Cas is 100% truth, you know? She did leave out mention of Lucifer, aside from the really vague “not any archangel will do.”

There’s still this unspoken implication of using Gabriel for his power, much as he’d been used by Asmodeus for the last however many years as a source of power, you know? Which is the main thing making me sit up and question everything Naomi has said here. Gabriel freed from one imprisonment where he was used horribly like that, only to immediately be asked to essentially volunteer for an eternity of the same exact sort of imprisonment… kinda sound like The Worst, you know?

But it’s also making me wonder… what if there was a way to directly “inject” that power into the Heaven Matrix? Which is leading me to wonder if this will literally tie in to Castiel’s future… and an extremely willing sacrifice of his own grace to sustain heaven while at the same time achieving his own personal humanity, you know? This is long-term goals though, so we’ll have to wait and see. WE NEED MORE CANON!

(also, to my anon who said this suggested that Cas might be moving away from a Human Endgame… please accept this as a reply to your comment, because no, this actually doubles down on that eventual resolution to his story for me)

But yeah, doing that same sort of thing with whatever’s left of Michael and his grace could also be an option

[spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)

 

[Apr 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173133975845/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man)

139 notes

**Anonymous asked: There are only 11 angels in the universe... Man, they're dicks but that's just sad. Also, why do I feel like the Cas and The Empty scene in 13x04 and the Cas and Naomi in Heaven scene are connected? I can't exactly explain how but I feel weird...**

[neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/173126404798/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173118316690/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man):
>
>> [chiwalker](http://chiwalker.tumblr.com/post/173118108831/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man):
>>
>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173112095185/there-are-only-11-angels-in-the-universe-man):
>>>
>>>> Well, Naomi said there were nine angels in Heaven. I assume she wasn’t counting herself or Cas. So with the nine that have been “keeping the lights on,” plus Naomi, plus Cas, plus Gabriel, plus Lucifer… we got enough to host The Last Supper… That’s actually really not good…
>>>> 
>>>> (also kinda wondering which angel is gonna sacrifice their grace to keep Heaven’s power on… if that might be a thing they’re headed toward, or if someone (probably Jack) can boop a few angels back from the Empty, or if AU Angels might’ve caused some similar calamity in their own version of Heaven and that’s why they’re battling it out for the Earth over there in the first place and some of them might volunteer to go help save our universe’s Heaven instead of continuing their battle in the AU… so many possibilities!)
>>>> 
>>>> Back in 13.04 I think most of us believed that Naomi was one of the angels in the Empty, right? But she’s been in something like her own personal version of the Empty all these years instead, rebuilding herself from a torture that left her severely damaged in much the same way she’d done to Cas and other angels throughout time. And yet she survived that, and the Angel Fall, and the civil wars that followed, and has now stepped back up to lead the very very few angels left.
>>>> 
>>>> Like, Heaven is sort of becoming the empty, in that it’s empty of angels. I wonder what’s become of the human souls up there? Are their individual Heavens breaking down? Are they aware that there’s something seriously wrong with the Matrix up there? Are they waking up? ARE THE BOBBIES GETTING SURLY?!
>>> 
>>> But this ignore the huge THING a few seasons ago(actually the whole Crowley-Cas thing) about getting souls, because “each soul is a beautiful little nuclear reactor”. I mean Death, Crowley, Cas, they were all about getting souls. Crowley floated a loan of souls to Cas to fight Raphael. Has this changed?
>> 
>> You can have all the power in the universe, but if the grid that holds them together falls apart because the angels aren’t there to maintain it… I mean, the angels have been shown to basically be custodians in heaven, from Joshua tending the Garden right down to poor Jophiel who was just doing some routine maintenance on a random door when Luci exploded him back in 11.18, to Anael pushing the button every time a new soul was admitted.
>> 
>> All those admin angels whose only job was taking care of the actual structure of heaven are gone now. Without them, having the power of all those souls literally means nothing if it can’t be channeled, you know?
> 
> I think some people are basically suggesting that Angels need to maybe retrofit human souls hosted in Heaven to instead power Heaven? Like rewiring souls to function like angelic construct? So they can use them to power the system? I don’t think Angels would even consider this, even if it could be done. It feels too much like playing God in a way just replicating God’s process to create Angels does not.

This actually reminds me a lot of a theory of “reorganizing heaven” from back in s9 after Metatron first booted all the angels out. Because even with all the angels banished from Heaven, it still kept motoring on. Sure, the souls were getting trapped in the veil and not able to enter heaven either without the angels there to admit them and file them away or whatever, but there was a lot of talk back then about maybe the souls sort of… rebelling against the fact that they were all locked away in their individual heavens and “reorganizing” the way Heaven runs overall.

Because we know human souls are one of the most powerful things in the universe. I mean, I’m side-eyeing everything Naomi said there SO HARD, because she was literally the embodiment and personification of this rigid structure of Heaven, keeping the entire system in tune the second anyone stepped out of line.

I joked about the Bobbies being surly again… but without a host of angels to force everyone back into compliance, maybe it’s time for humanity to truly claim Heaven. Just as Hell is currently left without any of its “ruling class” of demons, and there’s whispers that maybe Rowena is being set up to rule in Hell… It’s all very interesting, this restructuring of Chuck’s creation to accommodate the new order now that he’s reconciled with Amara… it’s all cosmic consequences and ripples of Humanity finally being ready to take the next step on a cosmic level.

(Chuck did leave the care of the universe in Dean’s hands when he left in 11.23, effectively placing the embodiment of Humanity at the center of creation, so…)

[spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 13.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.19) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[May 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173843386775/hold-on-gabriel-was-the-only-archangel-that-could)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hold on, Gabriel was the only Archangel that could power Heaven and now that he's gone... Oh no. I doubt Lucifer would willingly stay in Heaven and power it himself.**

Hi there. :)

1) We don’t know that Gabriel is actually dead. I’m not sure we can ever really trust Gabriel’s death, you know?

2) I don’t think Gabriel had been strong enough to power Heaven on his own based on how weak he was, and how low on grace he was at the beginning of 13.21.

3) I’m not sure if Heaven’s problems are all gonna be fixed by the end of this next episode. I have a feeling it will be an issue going forward in s14.

4) Do we completely trust what Naomi said to Cas about the state of Heaven and what the potential consequences might be if all the angels do disappear, or drop even by one or two more?

5) Will the AU angels (any of them, not just Michael) offer some sort of solution? Will Jack be able to offer some sort of solution? Will the angels potentially resort to freeing Michael from the cage as a last-ditch measure to fix things? And will that potentially go horribly wrong?

We just can’t know the answers to these things yet, but I bet at least some of them will be reserved for exploration in s14. We’ve been very slowly addressing Heaven Problems since like… s4. I can’t imagine everything will just be wrapped up with it all anytime soon.

[spn 13.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.21) [spn 13.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.22) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[May 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174033549170/so-lucifer-gone-lilith-gone-princes-of-hell)

34 notes

**[yarnyfan](http://yarnyfan.tumblr.com/) asked: so. Lucifer: gone. Lilith: gone. Princes of Hell: all gone. Knights of Hell: all gone. Crowley: gone. Cut-rate Crowley substitute: gone. Is it safe to say that we may never have to worry about what's going on down in Hell ever again? Or is this the opportunity "Power to the People" demon from 11x03 has been waiting for at long last?**

Oh gosh. I mean, we know Hell is constantly being replenished with new damned souls, but heck, I wonder without all the Big Time Demons in charge who’s torturing and organizing all the souls, you know? Sort of like Heaven’s coming apart at the seems (if we believe Naomi), Hell also has some structural issues right now.

I’ve been daydreaming that Snooki is now in charge of the Crossroads.

But yeah, maybe the Cat Video Demon that survived is now in charge by default? What ever happened to Drexel, too?

And heck, we never saw where Michael and Lucifer booped into our world from the AU, but the portal they opened, did it stay open for 24 hours? I wonder if any demons from the AU (or even other AU angels) managed to make it through? Interesting…

Heck, real quick while we’re on the topic of Heaven, I wonder if Michael is gonna boop up to heaven thinking that he can muster this universe’s angels to war? And what he’s gonna think about the fact that his “army” consists of nine whole angels? Is he gonna try to open a portal again to bring more troops, or just… run this war solo?

Okay, back to the point.

Snooki for Hell President 2k18.

[spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Jun 28, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175347743980/im-curious-to-see-if-the-lack-of-angels-in-heaven)

22 notes

**Anonymous asked: I’m curious to see if the lack of angels in Heaven problem will be solved or if it’s going to be sidelined. They brought it up like it was going to be explored this season, but we haven’t heard much of it since.**

Yeah, I know, right? We had Lucifer, Gluttonous Muncher of Angels, chomping his way through the AU’s stocks, and even Jack had got to the point where he was just zapping them out of the air.

There’d been some speculation when we first heard the title of the episode “Exodus” as to whether it would involve humans (which it did) or the AU’s angels, in some bid for perhaps some of the disgruntled among the ranks to integrate into our “Paradise World” Heaven or something darker like a full-on invasion.

Now we have Lucifer dead, Jack in the regular world minus most (or perhaps all) of his powers, and the Heaven Situation at a precarious stasis. I don’t know how AU!Michael will play into this, but given he’s the most powerful angel left in this world, and theoretically the only one with the power to open a rift back into the AU (barring Gabriel secretly being alive somewhere licking his wounds), I think they have a lot of options for dealing with the depowered Heaven situation.

Hopefully they’ll continue to address it somehow… They’ve been every so glacially slowly dealing with Heaven Nonsense since the Apocalypse, so I trust they’ll continue to do so :)

s[pn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

[Jun 28, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175348643740/i-have-to-admit-im-getting-a-little-bored-and)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: I have to admit i'm getting a little bored and tired of the Heaven/angel plot being so glacially dealt with for so long; feels very drawn out at this point. But i guess they have to have something to keep narratives and arcs and all that going, plus I assume the end of Cas's "am i a human or an angel" arc is going to tie into the resolution of the Heaven plot, and i know that's all things that are going to be more for the end of the series. So i'll bear with it lol.**

Yeah, I mean, I know it’s still happening in the background most of the time, and that seems to be how they’ve chosen to deal with it for the last long stretch of time (at least since like… s6-s7 when the angel problems happened offscreen more than onscreen, and we didn’t really know the full extent of what Cas was dealing with in Heaven until 6.20).

S8 brought in Naomi and Metatron, and then the angel fall where the angels became a more immediate Earthly concern, but when even Chuck and Amara reuniting in 11.23, they still kinda left Heaven in a state of general disaster when they flapped off.

So angels and Heaven continue to be an issue. It seems fairly safe to assume that Chuck did fix the problems with the Veil when he released Keven into Heaven in 11.21, at least, but heck s13 made it clear there’s even bigger potential problems brewing.

But you’re right, these issues probably won’t be finalized and resolved until toward the end of the series, unless AU Michael being a power in this world in s14 is going to return the focus to Heaven and angels, at least for a good part of the season. I also know Dabb likes to play Musical Big Bads, so I’m still wondering if Michael is even going to be our main antagonist over the entire season, you know?

They theoretically could “fix” Heaven, releasing Cas from his eternal burden of guilt over trying to fix it himself, and free him up for a more focused “who am I and where and what do I want to be” arc in 15 (assuming 15 will be the end of the series, which is not a guarantee, just a hypothetical).

I’m still content to watch whatever happens, and however they intend to handle all this. Even if it is glacially slow and mostly in the background. I like the focus to stay on TFW anyway, so it works for me. :)

[spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty)

 

#  [How did Chuck bring back Cas?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176093993755/how-did-chuck-bring-back-cas)

[Jul 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176094878925/how-did-chuck-bring-back-cas)

64 notes

[funnywings](https://funnywings.tumblr.com/post/176094481238/how-did-chuck-bring-back-cas):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176093993755/how-did-chuck-bring-back-cas):
>
>> [gertiecraign](https://gertiecraign.tumblr.com/post/176010692995/how-did-chuck-bring-back-cas):
>>
>>> Watching season 5 again. Question:
>>> 
>>> We now know that when angels die they go to The Empty, which is controlled by an incredibly crabby, strung-out, sleep-deprived dick. That dick is the only one that has any pull in The Empty.
>>> 
>>> So…in Season 5 when the archangel exploded Cas - and again after Lucifer exploded Cas (and arguably the several other times my boy Smitey McDiesALot was resurrected) how did Chuck get him back? I mean, I’m guessing Chuck interceded before the reaper got hold of Cas’s essence and took him to The Empty, but…there seemed to be long stretches of time. Like…did Cas say ‘no’ to the reaper each time and was he hanging out in the Veil? Angels don’t have physical bodies that die and release their eternal form. They are already in their eternal form. So…do they even spend any time in the Veil after death waiting for a reaper? They can see into the Veil…do they already exist there? 
>>> 
>>> How did Cas avoid going to The Empty OR how did Chuck get him back?
>>> 
>>> Hmmm…
>> 
>> the theory is that Chuck was paying attention throughout the apocalypse (and after… since Cas didn’t go to the empty in 7.01/7.02 either), and that Chuck just… prevented Cas from getting to the empty. Reapers exist to ferry souls to their afterlife, so the theory goes that souls don’t just ~appear~ in their afterlife, but need to be brought there. We don’t know who/what “brings” angels to the Empty (maybe reapers? Maybe Death? God himself?) but theoretically Chuck interfered with that process (multiple times!) with Cas.
>> 
>> Kinda the same way Crowley bribed a rogue reaper to divert Bobby’s soul to Hell.
>> 
>> We know souls are “stuck” and that people can’t fully die without a reaper there (thanks 4.15! and 7.10! and 6.11! and probably other episodes I can’t think of at this second…) so I think we’re being asked to make the same assumption regarding dead angels. We just don’t know what mechanism does the ferrying in the case of dead angels or dead demons.
>> 
>> Reapers take human and monster souls to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Thanks to Billie, we know they have the ability to take souls to the Empty (her ongoing threat to Sam and Dean). We have to wonder if Reapers do take angel and demon souls/grace/smoke/whatever they are to the Empty, too.
>> 
>> And wonder who/what Chuck had stationed to intercept not only Cas, but Sam and Dean as well, every time they were killed…
>> 
>> It’s also interesting because Cas really HAS made it all the way to the Empty this time. If my postulations above are kinda on-target, this fact kinda proves that God really has stopped paying attention to them and interfering with them now. 
> 
> Billie’s in charge now and she’s not messing around, that’s what happened.
> 
> I mean, if some punkass angel stabbed me and I became Death, I’d make sure they ended up the Empty before God could look up from his margarita and say “What?”

Heh… yeah, probably. 

Makes me wonder if Billie was just letting him stay “dead” as long as she had to stay dead before she came back as Death, after she got a chance to have that lil chit chat with Dean in 13.05, giving everyone enough time to reflect a bit before she would’ve eventually poked Cas awake again anyway. I mean, she doesn’t seem MAD about being Death now, you know? And she does have Cas not only to  _blame_  for it, but to  _thank_  for it, as well.

Blame first, then thank. :P

 

[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [Death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle)

 

[Aug 28, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177485963120/i-dont-know-if-this-subject-has-been-touched-upon)

27 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: I don't know if this subject has been touched upon but....we all make a mention of how Death is a Primordial, ancient and on league with Amara and Chuck. However, Death was one of four Horsemen. If Death was so superior, what did that make the other three? Is "Horsemen" just a man-made title used to describe four deadly yet unrelated disasters (or something)? The other three also refer to Death as one of their brothers so I'm doubly confused now. Help, please?**

Hi hi! This is another one you asked ages ago, and I wanted to wait until I had time to properly think about it before answering, and then somehow *eons passed* and then I finally stumbled down my inbox far enough to see it… >.>

I have always thought of Death as “separate” from the Four Horsemen first, and then as part of the apocalypse prophecy. I mean, of the Four Horsemen, he was the only one that Lucifer had to enact a special ritual to bind him. It’s almost like Death was somehow different than the other three Horsemen.

War, Famine, and Pestilence, when you think about it, are kinda not on the same level as Death who encompasses all of the others, you know?

Just like Chuck set up everyone else to participate in his Apocalypse, he set up Death, too. I don’t think Death appreciated it any more than Lucifer (or Sam or Dean or anyone else) did. :P

Strangely, the only one who ever seemed perfectly content to go along with the whole End The World Plan was Michael. Which either makes Michael the most boring one-note villain ever, or an idiot. Maybe both…

Which is why I’m actually really interested in AU Michael, because he has lived through that whole plan, and discovered that it was all a lie, and that it didn’t bring a peaceful end but a decade of war and far worse suffering all around. It makes me interested to know the fate of his universe’s Horsemen, and what he’ll think of our universe’s Death… or if there’s just one Death (or God, for that matter) for the entire multiverse…

There’s a lot the show hasn’t said about this, and it’s one of the reasons I love any episode we get with Death.

I’ve written a lot about Death:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle> (this one also covers Reapers in general)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-texted-my-friend-%27i-like-death%27-but-it-looked-so-disconcerting> (OG Death’s tag)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/billie-the-reaper>

But also check the tags for pretty much any episode Death had a role in, and possibly even my s11 duality tags… I know I’ve written bunches about Death’s place in the larger cosmic structure.

Thanks to s11, we have confirmation on the original duality of existence– Chuck and Amara. But when Chuck locked her away to invent the rest of creation before she could destroy it (because that is her essential nature), there still had to be ~something~ to counter unbridled creation. So I think that’s Death’s role in the universe. Which is why he had to “die” in order for Amara to be “born.” And why Billie was elevated to the mantle of power we call Death once Amara was reunited with Chuck.

So yeah, I think Death is inherently “more” than his bound role as a Horseman of the Apocalypse. Which is why he was the ONE horseman who dealt fairly with Dean rather than just going on a rampage the way the others did.

[Death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle) [i texted my friend 'i like death' but it looked so disconcerting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-texted-my-friend-%27i-like-death%27-but-it-looked-so-disconcerting) [billie the reaper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/billie-the-reaper) [COSMIC. CONSEQUENCES.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/COSMIC.-CONSEQUENCES.) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [heck what other death tags can i stick on here? I know there's others... >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-what-other-death-tags-can-i-stick-on-here%3F-I-know-there%27s-others...-%3E.%3E)[rionaofblue](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rionaofblue)

 

[Oct 16, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179119863375/im-rewatching-1022-yes-yes-i-know-i-know-i)

212 notes

I’m rewatching 10.22 (yes yes I know I know… I hate this whole bit of the show, but ugh…), in which Dabb has written an interesting exchange between Sam and Crowley, which I think is EXTREMELY RELEVANT to Sam’s current stand on Hell in 14.01.

**Crowley:**  I said, that’s what I get for trying to be the good guy.  
 **Sam:**  Wait a second, so you’re the good guy?  
 **Crowley:**  do you have any idea what I’ve been at this past year? The changes I’ve made to Hell.  
 **Sam:**  Am I supposed to be impressed by that?  
 **Crowley:**  Yes! I thought if I did better, I might actually feel something again. That it might matter.  
 **Sam:**  It doesn’t matter. You know, maybe everybody else forgot about the bad you’ve done, but I haven’t. I have watched you kill people, Crowley, innocent people, people I cared about, people I loved. So yeah, you have got the accent and the suit and the snark, but at the end of it, you are a monster just like the rest of them. And I’m going to watch you die, screaming, just like the rest of them.  
 **Crowley:** You’re right I am a monster, and I’ve done bad, I’ve done thing you can’t even imagine. Horrible, evil, messy things. And I’ve loved every damn minute. So thank you Sam, for reminding me who I really am.

Because NO, Sam really hasn’t got any idea the sorts of changes Crowley had been making in Hell. After Sam’s declaration in 14.01 that there will be no new king of Hell, I’m thinking this is all part of Sam’s denial of anything having to do with Hell, much the same as he admitted in 13.12 to having repressed everything to do with his trauma related to Lucifer, Hell, the Cage, etc.

It’s the same mentality that led Chuck to lock Amara up, because it was easier to put problems in a cage and lock them away then to actually deal with them. And there’s consequences to just trying to lock the door on something and throw away the key.

Crowley may never have had a “deal” with the Winchesters in which they agreed to just give him a free pass over stuff, but he did keep things running smoothly, which meant largely keeping Hell Stuff off the Winchesters’ radar and handling a lot of the crap most of demonkind tried to pull.

Sam declaring there will be no new king of Hell just seems to be asking for the same sort of trouble. Or maybe worse.

I’m hoping that Sam will finally be able to see the bigger picture regarding all of this, and working through his trauma while also understanding that the balance in the universe extends to accepting that Hell provides part of that cosmic balance, and having a strong, trustworthy leader there is better than trying to ignore it all together.

(not even mentioning the fact that this all stemmed from Sam working with Rowena in secret, but now that their relationship and goals have evolved, I look forward to seeing what part she will play in this going forward, too… )

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [hubris is bad](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hubris-is-bad) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [rowena](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rowena)[heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [look at all these good old tags!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/look-at-all-these-good-old-tags%21) [s14 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s14-meta-rewatch) [WHEEE A NEW TAG!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/WHEEE-A-NEW-TAG%21)[spiders georg of the tnt loop](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spiders-georg-of-the-tnt-loop)

 

[Oct 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179260987515/hi-in-13th-season-we-had-a-lot-of-reminders-that)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! In 13th season we had a lot of reminders that “so little angels are left”, but I wonder if there is the same problem with demons? I mean, demons are souls that have been very damaged by tortures, but after Crowley reconstructed the Hell appearing of new demons became a problem (for example, it really sucks to permanently wait in line, but I don’t think it is what turns you into demon). What do you think? (sorry if you’ve already written about it, i can’t find)**

Hi hi!

First off, I don’t think the “waiting eternally in line” corridor that Crowley showed Cas in 6.20 was what the entirety of Hell is like, you know? It was possibly just a bit of a PR front to help nudge him into working with Crowley, because look! I’m not EVIL-evil, just a functionary doing what the universe has tasked me with.  See, for hell this is practically NICE!

Because we saw the corner of Hell that Bobby had been stuck in later, where he was visited 50 times a day by Sam and Dean replicas to torture him. We saw a woman trapped in another cell hallucinating her rescue over and over again. And Alastair might be dead, but I bet another one of his apprentices took up his razor, you know?

Just like Heaven, Hell isn’t one place. And over time, even eons of standing in line would twist a soul… I mean have you ever met people waiting in line? It seems to  _wreck_  some folks. And they’re ostensibly humans. I think Hell is a place where the torture is tailored to the soul. For you, waiting in line for 10000 years might not sound bad. But for some people waiting in line for 10 minutes is beyond their ability to can.

Plus, Hell isn’t like heaven. Souls go to hell, and then all you need is time to turn them into demons. They’ve got a ready supply on tap. Angels were always a finite species. Until whatever Michael’s started doing tinkering with the monster populations… we’ll see what comes of that…

But as for Hell, I in no way believe that that one spot where Crowley took Cas in 6.20 constitutes the  _only_  part of Hell, you know? The torture is still happening. The demons are still making more demons. It’s just that the most powerful original demons are now gone. Possibly they were the ones created by Lucifer with little bits of his own grace, much like Michael seems to be doing with monsters now…

h[eaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn 8.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.19)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	57. Chapter 57

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigils and Symbols

[Jun 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145474421135/i-wanted-to-point-something-out-that-i-just)

17 notes

**Anonymous asked: I wanted to point something out that I just realised. The banishing Symbol Metatron uses on Amara is the same one Toni uses on Cas in the bunker. Does this mean Cas was hit by a power which Metatron deemed fit to take out/slow down Amara and is therefore extremly weakend if not dead? I´m freaking out a little bit right now...why do we have to wait so long for a conclusion?**

*sighs* Cas is not dead. He was banished. I’ve read so many distressed posts analyzing the sigil and the “strange” visual effect used as he was blooped out attempting to prove that something ~different~ than a straight-up, old-fashioned banishing had occurred there.

Go back and look over[ every instance superwiki has cataloged of the use of a banishing sigil since it was first introduced in 4.10](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DAngel_banishing_sigil&t=ODBhMGFiY2QwY2VmYzNjMGY4OGMxY2RkYTQyYjhiMmFhY2FmNjRmOCxGc2t6eFl4Vw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F145474421135%2Fi-wanted-to-point-something-out-that-i-just&m=1). That’s a really useful resource, because there’s clear pictures of nearly every one of them all neatly laid out on a single page. The ONLY one that’s substantially different than the others is the strange sigil used by Samuel to banish Cas in 6.10.

Every single other version, including Metatron’s and Lady Toni Bevell’s, only vary because of either the surface they’re “painted” on, or the haste with which they were created. That’s it. There’s NOTHING substantially different or more sinister about those two banishing sigils compared to nearly every other use of them in the past. Even Sam’s hastily drawn sigil from 11.14 looks the same, only it’s kinda messy and drippy looking because he’d had to paint it behind his back without Lucifer noticing what he was doing. Same goes for 9.06 when Cas did something similar, painting behind his back to avoid notice. It makes for a messy sigil, but one that essentially functions the same way.

As far as the strange way the light flash effect of Cas’s banishing in 11.23 appeared, I’m willing to chalk it up to the VFX department refining their skills. Compare and contrast how demon “smoke” looked back in 1.04 (like a swarm of fleas), to how it looked in s3 (blobby clouds), and to how it looks today (Crowley’s dancing red plume).

I hope that helps reduce your freak-out level just a bit. :)

[spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [spn 9.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.06) [spn 4.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.10) [spn 6.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.10) [banishing sigils](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/banishing-sigils)[there's nothing to see here folks it's the same old same old](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there%27s-nothing-to-see-here-folks-it%27s-the-same-old-same-old) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

I’ve always theorized that the banishing sigil never did send angels back to Heaven, simply because we know that Cas ended up on a boat once, and at a dog track in Australia once. I also always held that Dean’s babbling in 9.01 about where the angels would go with heaven locked up was just that: babbling to kill time so he could finish the sigil. Since the show has never in fact clarified what happens to angels when they’re banished, I’m inclined to believe it just sends them far away.

Since it takes “three or four hours” for them to boop themselves back to that original location of their banishment (back when they had the wings to boop themselves anywhere), I’ve also always assumed that it leaves them unable to “reassemble” themselves at the point where they end up. I’m just referring to their grace here, going off AJ’s comparison of grace with light waves.

Unless Chuck restored his ability to teleport, Cas may be stuck at whatever destination he ends up at. Other than that, Toni’s sigil is nearly identical to every other banishing sigil ever used on the show (other than Samuel’s in 6.10). I can’t imagine any distinct difference in the result. I.e.: Cas will materialize somewhere on Earth, but somewhere really inconvenient.

For reference, here’s a clear shot of Toni’s sigil, pre-activation, since I haven’t already seen one screencapped anywhere:

Same as it ever was, just with a little smudgy blood on it already. There’s nothing secret or extra-special or sinister about it.

 

[Nov 3, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152705938285/idk-if-anyone-talked-about-this-but-i-saw-some)

12 notes

**[casismybestfriend](https://casismybestfriend.tumblr.com/) asked: Idk if anyone talked about this, but I saw some discussions about the 4-way stop sign between Dean and Sam in the 12.04 scene, and then I kept scrolling and saw a gifset of Crowley and Cas in 12.03. Well, in the scene where they're trying to talk to each other with the truck in between, there's a 3-way stop sign behind Crowley. Just something I noticed, but I'm not good at metas.**

Yeah, a bunch of folks pointed out the 3 way stop in 12.03, and we were commenting on the 4 way in 12.04. Like everything in s12, it could be referring to all sorts of things.

the 3-way:

  * Cas-Crowley-Dean as a weird love triangle
  * the Cas-Crowley-Rowena team-up
  * the Winchester family dynamic that Cas was feeling uncertain if he belonged in between Dean, Sam, and Mary



the 4-way

  * Cas-Crowley-Dean-Lucifer? There’s all sorts of weird dynamics going on there… Crowley and Lucfier both spent time occupying Cas last season while Dean stood outside trying to break in…
  * The Winchester family dynamic of Dean-Sam-Mary-Cas (because WE know he’s a part of that family)



Probably more stuff? But I want to see the whole episode first and see where everybody stands. *eeeee! only 44 mintes to go!*

[spn 12.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.04) [spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [which is a stupid tag for a stop sign but what are ya gonna do?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-a-stupid-tag-for-a-stop-sign-but-what-are-ya-gonna-do%3F) [spooky-spn](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spooky-spn)

 

[Nov 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152779174480/so-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already)

114 notes

**Anonymous asked: So I don't know if anyone has said this already, but the theological theory about Jesus is that he didn't speak Hebrew, but Arameic. I'm no meta writer, but I thought it was 1. Interesting that Sam knew the difference and 2. It makes how Olivia dies so incredibly parallel to how Jesus (supposedly) walked to the cross, dying for the sins of others (the mother in this case??) Anyway, I just wanted to share my knowledge so maybe better writers can use it or something :p Have a nice day :))**

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/152776743148/so-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152776301180/so-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already):
>
>> *eta sorry if this post looks weird on my blog, i swear it looks properly formatted on the dash, or in the reblog editor…*
>> 
>> This is all good, and I’m fascinated by the way people not raised Catholic viewed these things. :)
>> 
>> As soon as Olivia stumbled into the church with bloodied hands and feet I made [this post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152707534875/ooh-stigmata-waiting-for-her-side-to-be-pierced):
>>
>>> Ooh, stigmata.
>>> 
>>> Waiting for her side to be pierced.
>> 
>> We’d already seen the wounds on her back as she dragged herself toward the altar like the world’s most disturbing Passion Play. She even wore pink.
>>
>>> [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/152763396603/so-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already):
>>>
>>>> Thanks for making that parallel. :D I’m perpetually behind on my dash so I have no idea right now the extent to which people have discussed it…
>>>> 
>>>> This is one of those things where I grew up reading the Fortean Times and studied religion and philosophy until I was 18 just because I liked the teacher and felt bad dropping the class, so I have actually no perception on what’s normal for (other) non-religious people who (actually) were raised secularly to know about this stuff because reading about weird stigmata-y miracles is just part of my life experience :P I was vaguely assuming everyone got the reference but I hadn’t thought too deep about it either, so it’s good you sent this with some actual analysis. :D
>>>> 
>>>> Anyway this was a pretty textbook case for anyone who hasn’t read much about it:
>>>> 
>>>> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FStigmata&t=MjNlMjkxYzM0ZmIwNzYxN2NiZTA0ZGU0ODI3M2NhMjg2OWEwOTVhMCxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1)
>>>>
>>>>> **Stigmata**  (singular  _stigma_ ) is a term used by members of the [Christian faith](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FChristianity&t=ZDQyY2QzZWYyZTlhMTgyMGM0ZGVkZTE2MTM5YjJjYjFiOTZmMGY0YyxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1) to describe body marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the [crucifixion](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCrucifixion_of_Jesus&t=OGU4MzY0NDdjM2VmMzdiMTQ4ODY0ZGY1YTg4MWIxMDlmYzA3NjM1YSxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1)[wounds](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFive_Holy_Wounds&t=ZjE5N2JmNGJlYjMxNmY1NjY4YjljZDA2NDdkNTMyNjNjZDdkNTgyZSxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1) of [Jesus Christ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJesus_in_Christianity&t=NTIwNGM3OTY1Y2I2YjMwMjhmZDE2NDE0ZDJhYjM2Mzg1OTBjZGVjZCxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1), such as the hands, wrists, and feet. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reported cases of stigmata take various forms. Many show some or all of five [Holy Wounds](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHoly_Wounds&t=NDUwMDRjZGY3ZmM1ZmViMzA2ZTA2Mzc1ZjRjOTRmMGVmY2NkN2NjOSxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1)that were, according to the [Bible](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBible&t=MGNhZjZkYzFjYzdmNWRlNDA0M2JiYTc5NDM3MTYyNTZjNTc4MmI3YixrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1), inflicted on Jesus during his crucifixion: wounds in the wrists and feet, from nails; and in the side, from a lance. Some stigmatics display wounds to the forehead similar to those caused by the [Crown of Thorns](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCrown_of_Thorns&t=Y2U3ODBiMmVhZjk2NzZiMDU3NzIyYmNjYWUwYTEwNTZlYTgwZjY2ZSxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1).[[3]](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FStigmata%23cite_note-Carroll-3&t=OTQ0YTFhOWMxYzIxMTFjMDVkMDM5NDVhMmNlZWJiZjZmMDhmZDA0ZSxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1) Other reported forms include tears of blood or sweating blood, and wounds to the back as from [scourging](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FScourging&t=ODU5ZjIxM2ZmMDc1MmEzYjBjNWVkZTNiMDFkYjg4YzQ2MWIwZjU5YixrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1). 
>>>> 
>>>> Since Magda was being made to flagellate herself she already had some of the same wounds anyway for real, but she was clearly hyper-focused on Jesus through her prayer and I guess the flagellation didn’t help separate her from that, so she projected the nail holes and crown of thorns onto the others through that connection.
>>>> 
>>>> I actually found it really interesting that she didn’t even know she’d done that to them so of course these wounds weren’t intentional - all she wanted was to reach out to them for help, not to hurt them. So was she turning them into saviors for her to come rescue her from the devil? Idk if the names are actually linked or not but I took “Magda” to be “Magdalene” aka Mary Magdalene, who Jesus first met by exorcising her of demons:
>>>> 
>>>> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene#New_Testament_sources](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMary_Magdalene%23New_Testament_sources&t=YTQ2OGI1YWI3Mzc3NTNkNzcxNzFhMTQ0ODgwMGJjOTU0NmZmZGM3ZSxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1)
>>>> 
>>>> Of course she was also linked directly to Sam, who Jesus-figured his way through sacrificing himself to save the world back in season 5 as the culmination of his powers arc, and I probably need to rewatch but I think the Aramaic that the people she accidentally killed were saying was the same prayer for help she was making? At some point I think the mother was reading old prayers at her as well although they never made a direct link to how she knew Aramaic I’m fairly sure that was what was going on? 
>>>> 
>>>> (I have a hard time parsing lyrics and prayers and chants and stuff on TV - I didn’t even realise she was singing in English when we first met her and just assumed that was Aramaic but I’m REASONABLY sure she was actually not speaking English when she prayed :P)
>>>> 
>>>> Although it is kind of ironic that Olivia and the delivery boy died for Magda/because of her mother’s sins, since they couldn’t come back to save her… Although the deaths were weird enough and specific enough to draw Sam and Dean there and then triangulate her location from them it’s maybe not quite the “saviour” those victims would want to be maybe :P When it comes to the mother’s sins, I’m still paralleling this all strongly to Mary and Sam - obviously a worst case dark mirror to Mary but her deal started it all and gave Sam the powers indirectly, and then of course he did save the world but many people died along the way because of it, and for all the other characters that’s ancient history, but Mary at some point is going to have to come to terms with the Apocalypse and her part in it.
>>>> 
>>>> Anyway to get back to this episode, Magda saved herself and acted on mercy in the end, which I liked when it came to all this imagery.
>>>> 
>>>> (All the Jesus connections she got are more than enough for me to sit here like “nope, not dead” as well >.>)
>>> 
>>> During Lent [the seven weeks leading up to Easter, i.e. the crucifixion of Jesus] the church lit seven candles, one for each week of the solemn season. However solemn the season, the story of Lent also has a twinge of hope and joy since the death of Christ prefigured the resurrection. So, on the third Sunday of Lent, the church was encouraged not to fast, but to feast. In ancient times on this particular Sunday the Pope would honor a citizen with a pink rose, and as time passed the priests wore pink vestments on this day as a reminder of the coming joy. ([x](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hcna.us%2Fcolumns%2Fpink_advent_candle.html&t=NGI5ODFkN2E5YzdiY2YwODdjOTFkNjUwZTAyY2E5ZGUzYzk2NWJiNCxrSUJTRUxBZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F152779174480%2Fso-i-dont-know-if-anyone-has-said-this-already&m=1))
>> 
>> And our first introduction to Magda has her singing “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart…”
>> 
>> *Let’s just say I had massive flashbacks to Sunday School throughout this entire episode.*
>> 
>> While Olivia’s side wasn’t pierced, neither was Magda’s. It was her brother Elijah who stepped in front of Gail’s knife and suffered that wound in Magda’s place. He sacrificed himself for her, after Magda had saved him from Gail’s poison.
>> 
>> Someone also pointed out to me that Magda did share a few parallels to Amara (locked away for what she was, labeled evil, etc.), and she’d tried to reach out for help, to the light. Olivia. Olives.
>> 
>> The base for all holy oils in the Catholic Church (and therefore probably the Holy Oil used on SPN) is olive oil. Not only that, but it’s the traditional oil for lamps. They can only be consecrated on Holy Thursday (i.e. the mass commemorating the Last Supper before Jesus died on the cross).
>> 
>> *Also flashbacks to [this other post of Lizbob’s](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131233316665/i-wonder-is-there-a-connection-between-holy-oil) I also hijacked with Catholicism from early s11 about holy oil.*
>> 
>> Magda’s “prayer” to Olivia for help (i.e. the consecration of the holy oil) ended up in Olivia’s own symbolic self-sacrifice. The same way that Jesus metaphorically “died for our sins” on the cross.
>> 
>> I know this is really disorganized, but this was all running through my head as I watched the episode.
> 
> Ooh thanks.
> 
> What you said about Amara has reminded me of my speculation about her and the Book of the Damned waaay back in season 10 right after it was introduced, and the nun she reached out to through whatever crack she found to whisper through. (Again, Catholicism is involved?) Obviously the nun suffered immensely because she made the book out of her own skin and blood - again with the self-flaying except to a purpose. And in the long run, the whispers of ~darkness~ eventually paid off and Amara managed to get free, again with massive amounts of incidental death and destruction as a result of her incarceration and freedom - everything you can blame on the Mark of Cain, for example. And then all the people she consumed or killed while she was free and angry. Of course in the last few episodes of season 11 we were asked to be more sympathetic and now we have another mirror with an incredibly sympathetic girl locked up and reaching out for help…

[spn 12.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.04) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 10.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.16) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [for the 'new amara' parallel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/for-the-%27new-amara%27-parallel)[parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [dabb is giving us the subtext equivalent of a linzer torte here there's like 15 layers of delicious to enjoy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dabb-is-giving-us-the-subtext-equivalent-of-a-linzer-torte-here-there%27s-like-15-layers-of-delicious-to-enjoy) [i am so here for all the fic where magda used her powers to save herself yes good](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-am-so-here-for-all-the-fic-where-magda-used-her-powers-to-save-herself-yes-good) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F)

 

[Nov 18, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/153357502800/i-wish-last-nights-ep-would-have-been-90-dean)

40 notes

**Anonymous asked: I wish last night's ep would have been 90% Dean and Sam interacting with the other hunters and hearing the stories people tell about them, and 10% the whole house of professional demon killers being unprepared to deal with a demon.**

Oh gosh, I would LOVE to know what kinds of things the general hunting community at large believes about Sam and Dean. I am SO RELIEVED that none of them seem hellbent on killing Sam anymore, since that had been his main problem with hunters in general for years. Good to know that despite the continuing tales of weirdness circulating through the grapevine that at least most hunters are of the opinion that Sam isn’t inherently evil anymore…

Well, other than the British MoL, but they’re working off data that’s likely far more inaccurate than the apparently super-gossipy general hunter community.

Dean, on the other hand, didn’t really look like he was all that thrilled to hear the stories they might be circulating about him… but still, they’d offered him one of their homebrew label-free beers (HOME COOKING! NO LABELS!) and welcomed him into their conversation even at the same time they were “othering” him, at least in Dean’s mind. He’s still got a complex about his responsibilities and I think he was possibly concerned to hear their theories about his Summer of Love with Crowley, his time as a demon, his responsibility for the whole Darkness thing, the Leviathan mess, hanging in Purgatory with an angel and a vampire, getting yoinked out of hell by that same angel to kick off the apocalypse– I mean there is an EXTENSIVE LIST of things Dean might be concerned about them gossiping about him and his exploits, you know? Aside from the fact he practically lives with an angel…

I mean, what if they knew about his “Legacy” as a MoL? What if someone knew about the bunker? Their very HOME could be at risk… AGAIN.

(patented tangent time: Mary’s initial reaction to Asa’s Grand House being surprise that he lived in such a lovely and wealthy home, which was HIS legacy in a way, and then Jody commenting to Dean’s surprise at the same thing with something along the lines of “it’s his family home, not him” because Asa still lived there but he’d transformed his legacy into something entirely different by becoming a hunter instead. Sort of like Sam and Dean and their legacy of the bunker, which they’ve transformed in much the same way by becoming hunters too. BALANCE! Okay /tangent)

Truly, though, I was surprised at the lack of preparedness on the part of all those hunters (barring Sam, Dean, Jody, and Mary, because they wouldn’t have been expecting Demon Shenanigans at a funeral, you know? They didn’t have the full story on the circumstances of Asa’s death… even as far as the fake story that Bucky had been giving, blaming Asa’s death on a specific demon that had it out for him for years). And even Dean was more prepared than any of the rest of them, highlighted by the fact he pulled out his demon knife when the lights went out while everyone else was scrambling for flashlights.

The most stunning thing to me was that NONE of those other hunters seemed to know of or have an antipossession tattoo. As far as we know, Dean was the only person in that room who was fully protected against possession, since we’re still uncertain whether or not Sam ever had his replaced… and I’ve been raving since it was removed in 9.10 that I would lose SO MUCH RESPECT for him if he’s been hunting all this time without that.

Like, Sam, honey, you can’t possibly be that stupid. You spent the entire hiatus between s9 and s10 hunting demons, one of which you believed had possessed your dead brother, who you were torturing for information on yet MORE demons, AND YOU DID ALL THAT WITHOUT PROTECTING YOURSELF AGAINST DEMONIC POSSESSION?! ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID?! And no, I don’t think he is stupid. He must have that tattoo on him somewhere, OR I WILL FREAKING CLIMB THROUGH THE TV SCREEN TO SMACK HIM ACROSS THE NOSE WITH A ROLLED UP NEWSPAPER.

I figured that Jody would’ve at least worn some sort of charm protecting against possession (aah 3.12 where Sam and Dean handed those puppies out like candy), and that Sam and Dean would’ve urged Mary to get the tattoo (or at LEAST wear a charm), considering her personal history with demons…

I am just side-eyeing this whole business.

Give me all the coda fics where they have a group outing to a tattoo parlor and get EVERYONE (including Asa’s mom, because that demon was exorcised again and it’s gonna be even MORE pissed when it eventually manages to crawl back out of Hell) warded against possession.

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 12.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.06) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[Dec 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154092829925/do-you-think-its-going-to-bite-them-in-the-ass)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think it's going to bite them in the ass that sam is still lacking tattoo?**

Hi there, and yeah. I’ve been wibbling and whining about this since 9.10 when his tattoo went bye-bye.

I think we were mostly disappointed that we didn’t at least get a MENTION that Sam had his tattoo replaced (let alone a montage of him at the tattoo parlor… *spends five minutes having a private mental montage of such a scene anyway* *which is 20 times more interesting when you read the rest of this post…*)

I’ve made multiple ranting posts about how ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC it would be for Sam to have continued hunting through s9, s10, and s11 without a tattoo. He’s had SO MANY close calls with demons since then (including demon!Dean) that he’d have to be the absolute dumbest hunter on the planet not to have had it redone at some point.

I mean it was his possession by Meg waaaaay back in 2.14 (SEASON TWO!) that prompted them to get the tattoos in the first place. And he’s had more issues with loss of agency due to possession since then (Lucifer? Gadreel? CROWLEY?! Even Hallucifer and Toni Bevell invading his mind). Of all the hunters, he’s got the most personal/emotional/psychological reason of any of them to really, really, really want that tattoo.

Now after the events of 12.06, if he STILL doesn’t have that tattoo SOMEWHERE on his body, I’m sincerely gonna think a hell of a lot less of Sam. Or depending on his reasoning for not having it redone, I might alternately feel terrified for how suicidal or self-destructive that choice was.

Is it gonna bite them in the ass? Maybe. But I really do hope he got a new tattoo. It doesn’t necessarily even have to be on his chest there. Maybe he got a tramp stamp. Or got it on his butt. I don’t think the location really matters for effectiveness, but maybe he would want to put it somewhere more difficult to find considering how easy it was for Dean to find it and have Cas remove it last time… (yes, I know Dean was trying to save him from a different sort of possession at the time, but still, I think this is likely still a touchy subject for Sam).

[sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[Jan 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156085015730/elizabethrobertajones)

160 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/156081127743/postmodernmulticoloredcloak):

> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/156036771607/mamawantswinchesters-it-occurs-to-me-with-the):
>
>> [mamawantswinchesters](http://mamawantswinchesters.tumblr.com/post/156035971955/it-occurs-to-me-with-the-amount-of-spells-dean):
>>
>>> It occurs to me, with the amount of spells Dean and Sam, even Bobby, have cast over the years, they may be classified as Witches. Without the demon attachment, of course. White witches? Amateur witches?
>> 
>> I have always assumed that ‘witch’ is more of an identity than something you do. Anyone can make a spell with the required ingredients and incantation words or sigils/symbols; a witch is someone who either a) draws power from a demon, b) draws power from a familiar, c) is a “natural” like Rowena calls it (I assume this means that you can cast spells that only require wording, not ingredients, like Rowena often does), d) identifies as such because of their “frequent” spell-making, so to speak.
> 
> Yeah, I  find this blurry line really interesting… 10x19 had that great stuff between Sam and “Rowena” (and actual Rowena) which had a few comments on what Sam was able to do (and also that he needed a witch to pull off what he wanted or else I suppose he’d have just elbowed Rowena out the way and used the Book of the Damned himself), but Sam’s still the character with the most connection to witchy-ness and wanting to do magic (the magicians episode, where one of the magicians blurred the line between tricks and what was actual witchcraft, though I think they just talked about it as real magic because they were not so good with the idea that that made them witches, because they were old dudes :P But Sam was aligned with them too as having once been interested in stage magic.) 
> 
> Anyway I’ve reblogged meta before which went much deeper into why Sam wouldn’t want anything to do with identifying as a witch or going any deeper to using powers which aren’t the sort of thing literally anyone with the right ingredients and Latin words can do. Those sort of things just come under work for them, same as hex bags or, like, the super basic stuff of applying the magical qualities of salt or iron properly. It’s all just filed under resourcefulness instead of doing actual magic :P
> 
> I think it’s another thing where hunters operate in a liminal space even between other already liminal worlds, like the community of magic users and monsters; they get to dabble in things like doing spells, owning angel blades, summoning demons for work purposes, but they are regular humans (for the most part - aside from Max and Alicia and I don’t think we’ve ever met hunters who are actually monsters/demons who are doing it for non-ulterior motives/self-identified witches… I think Cas is the only non-human being to ever identify as a hunter and mean it? Stuff like Gordon immediately assuming that because he was a vampire he had to die instead of taking long term advantage of his new strength and so on, springs to mind)… I think the clearest example to me of hunters being a step removed from “normal” society is that perfect little example in 9x07 in the flashback where Sonny asks Dean about the protection symbol he carved in his bed. Just the juxtaposition of worlds and how Dean is operating just a little out of the normal, even when he’s blending in with non-hunters. (I guess same for 6x01 and the protection he had on the house, but Lisa and Ben knew about the monsters.)
> 
> … Anyway to actually make a point, hunters seem to be free to adopt whatever they like from the monsters and witches and so on they meet to do things in order to get the job done, but so long as they’re only using these things as tools to be a hunter, it’s not the same as becoming it (although the theme of hunters becoming what they hunt is also a huge one in the show).
> 
> They probably have no thought whatsoever about if it makes them a witch to do spells, as long as they’re not getting really caught up in learning spells to help them, outside of what they need in any immediate situation.

The interesting juxtaposition I find is Sam and Dean’s different reactions to their parallel experiences of “having powers.” Specifically, when Sam was on his demon blood bender in s4, and Dean with the MoC and even more specifically while he was actually a demon.

I like Lizbob’s comparison of the rituals they use as part of their job to any other tool they use. I mean, technically even chanting the exorcism is technically a form of “magic” that anyone is capable of doing if they know the right words to say. It’s like a cosmic vending machine. Pop in the right coin, and anyone can get the same result. Same with their summoning rituals and most of the other “magic” they use without really considering it “witchcraft.”

(which is weird because when Ruby saves Dean from the coven in 3.09 with a “potion,” she explicitly tells him is “witchcraft, short bus.” :P Which technically is what the “vampire cure” potion is, and every hex bag they use ever, or even their anti-possession tattoos or the warding etched into their ribs, despite the fact that they don’t see those “cosmic vending machine” things as actual witchcraft but more as weapons in their arsenal.)

But those two examples of Sam and Dean having innate ~powers~ reveal something important about each of them.

Sam’s guilt came from feeling like a freak because of the fact that he even HAD these powers. He felt “impure.” Tainted. Not really human. But if he was going to feel this way, he believed he could turn that “innate evil” into a tool he could use for good. That’s how he coped, compensated, and believed he could find absolution for what he believed the source of his “evil” was. So he USED those powers in a way he deemed “morally good.”

Dean believed he was “poison” before he even took on the Mark of Cain. It didn’t fundamentally change the way he thought about himself as a person. When he arose as a demon, though, he barely even TOUCHED his demonic powers. To him, it was the choice to NOT use the power AT ALL that absolved him and allowed him to cling to his humanity during that time.

All the post s9 fic about Demon Dean using his powers in super Dean ways (like snapping his fingers and booping up a cheeseburger or a beer or whatever, or just casually doing demon-y things) were fun, but in retrospect completely miss the mark (hur hur) on how Dean would fundamentally feel about HAVING that sort of power.

He spent so much of early canon mistrustful of Sam’s abilities. Not because Sam HAD those abilities, but because Sam was willing to USE those abilities.

From 4.01:

> DEAN: (bites his lip, like he’s not sure he wants to ask) So you’ve been using your, uh, freaky ESP stuff?  
> SAM: No.  
> DEAN: You sure about that? Well, I mean, now that you’ve got… immunity, whatever the hell that is… just wondering what other kind of weirdo crap you’ve got going on.  
> SAM: Nothing, Dean. Look, you didn’t want me to go down that road, so I didn’t go down that road. It was practically your dying wish.  
> DEAN: Yeah, well, let’s keep it that way.

Dean doesn’t care whether or not Sam has the ABILITY to do these things, so long as he exerts his free will and chooses NOT to use them.

To Sam, the inherent ABILITY to do these things is his source of shame, which he deals with by choosing to use his powers in a way he deems “good.”

Yet, again, to Dean, using them at all, for ANY reason, no matter how well justified, is giving in to that evil. He sees those inherent powers as something not natural (hur hur), as different from the spells and charms they casually employ as hunters.

[oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [the rashomon effect](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-rashomon-effect) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [demon dean barely used any demonic powers and that disappointed a lot of folks but THIS IS WHY](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/demon-dean-barely-used-any-demonic-powers-and-that-disappointed-a-lot-of-folks-but-THIS-IS-WHY) [huh that popped up in my tags when I typed in 'powers' so apparently I've talked about this before... go figure... :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/huh-that-popped-up-in-my-tags-when-I-typed-in-%27powers%27-so-apparently-I%27ve-talked-about-this-before...-go-figure...-%3AP)

 

[Feb 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156820981700/bagginshield-roll-the-dice-of-course-dean)

1,117 notes

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/0f9b53cba0bb4a18b02c716f8caa7532/tumblr_oks99fgMZa1rrecxqo2_500.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/71254ad863131e5fc946f0db1d434d8a/tumblr_oks99fgMZa1rrecxqo3_500.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/0ca2b78582b5c3d22e8eae94392484aa/tumblr_oks99fgMZa1rrecxqo1_500.gif)   


[bagginshield](http://bagginshield.tumblr.com/post/156745699241/roll-the-dice):

> Roll the dice…

Of course Dean wouldn’t roll the dice with Cas’s life. But can we discuss for a moment that new and interesting angel banishing sigil? Because in the history of the show we’ve never seen anything like that.

We know that Dean’s been devouring lore for the last few years while trying to cure himself of the Mark (and even before that, he’s always teased Sam for being a nerd, but Dean could give Sam a run for his money on Supernatural Jeopardy any day).

Dean hasn’t been referred to as a “monkey” this many times since… like… s4 when Uriel was around. First it was Toni Bevell, who had to eat her words when Dean proved he knew at least as many of those secrets of the lore as she did, and not only recognized the spell she was using on Mary but knew exactly how to stop it.

Now in an episode where Lily Sunder was supposedly so dangerous because she knew all the angels’ secrets, their language and spells, Dean decides to get fancy with the angel banishing sigil IN FRONT OF THE ANGEL THAT TAUGHT LILY ALL THOSE SPELLS.

So if nothing else, I’m reading this as Dean just proving that maybe Lily isn’t the only “dangerous” human with access to the lore and the knowledge to pull this sort of arcane symbol out when needed

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[Feb 22, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157583211630/do-you-think-cas-still-has-the-tattoo-on-his-ribs)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Cas still has the tattoo on his ribs?**

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157579167618/do-you-think-cas-still-has-the-tattoo-on-his-ribs):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157441573750/do-you-think-cas-still-has-the-tattoo-on-his-ribs):
>
>> Possibly? I mean, I assume that whatever the lance did to him was healed completely. Then again, he’s had his own mojo back for a while. Maybe he did the laser treatment removal of it like he did on Sam’s antipossession tattoo?
>> 
>> (Which I’m still mad about them dithering over whether he got it replaced or not… but that’s another matter entirely…)
>> 
>> But it might end up being another “oops we forgot the handprint” thing that we’re left to headcanon a reason for its disappearance. I guess we’ll have to wait and see the next time Cas has a reason to take off his shirt when he’s not dying of magical lance wounds.
>> 
>> Maybe once he got his grace back he carved it into his ribs, like he did for Sam and Dean, and erased the tattoo? It is a mystery.
> 
> I don’t think they showed enough of Cas to give us a peek at where the tattoo is - the full body make up I guess is so it didn’t end abruptly depending on how they lifted his shirt up in any take (and also because it looked cool :P)
> 
> I don’t think us knowing they didn’t bother to put it on him from behind the scenes affects the discussion of if he still has it or not, anyway :P
> 
> I might be wrong depending on where the spear got him but… I think we never never saw anyone pull his shirt all the way up past his ribs anyway…

Yeah, the tattoo is up higher than most people realize. It’s over the very bottom of his rib cage, not his hip or his abdomen.

I.e, above where the lance wound was… and no one ever raised his shirt up any higher than slightly above his belly button anyway. So even if it was still theoretically there, we wouldn’t have seen it anyway.

Then again, I recalled someone attempted to decipher/translate the meaning of the symbols in the tattoo and basically came to the conclusion that it’s gibberish anyway, so I can’t say as I have any sort of emotional attachment to the thing anyway… :P

While looking for that post (which I couldn’t find, because I used to suck at tagging things properly, as if my current tagging system made much sense either, but at least there ARE tags now…), I did run across the analysis of the x-ray rib carvings on Sam and Dean, which made me smile anyway…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/148746345950/drsilverfish-silvermoonphantom-for>

So yeah, I’d hope that if Cas still felt the need to ward himself, he’d do a better job than the hastily cobbled together spellwork which was probably written in some sort of shorthand or code (since it’s indecipherable as actual words with meanings, I assume he couldn’t afford the full rib cage tattoo treatment he gave Sam and Dean at the time…)

Anyway, yeah, Cas with mojo doesn’t really need the warding tattoo. Unlike Sam “Squishy Possessable Human” Winchester. >.>

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

 

[Feb 22, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157589933320/im-sorry-if-you-or-someone-has-answered-this-but-i)

73 notes

**Anonymous asked: Im sorry if you or someone has answered this but I can't find an answer anywhere trawling through... if u don't mind, maybe you can help me understand why cas wants to hide the tablet from the angels in 8x17? I'm confused why it'd be bad if the angels have the angel tablet...? Or is he just upset at their treatment of him? Surely the best place for the tablet to keep all angels safe is heaven tho?**

Hey there! You’re lucky I just watched 8.17 yesterday, and 8.21 today (because that’s where we see the culmination of the journey Cas goes on with the tablet). There’s quite a bit more to the history of the angel tablet that we explore in s9, with Metatron using it to power his Magical Canon Typewriter and try to rewrite the script to his own liking, and I think some of that actually gives us more insight into just how powerful the tablets themselves really are.

Going all the way back to 7.21 when the Leviathan tablet is first cracked out of its stone shell, it releases a sort of cosmic blast wave that wakes both Castiel from his catatonic state AND delivers the lightning strike of Prophethood to Kevin Tran. Just shattering those things loose and exposing them to the world seems to imply that the tablets themselves can exert a degree of control upon their surroundings.

Leviathan tablet is cracked open ==> a Prophet of the Lord who can read the Word is awakened and compelled to seek out the tablet

Angel tablet is cracked open ==> an Angel of the Lord happens to be standing RIGHT THERE and it compels that angel to take care of it above and beyond all other duties or desires.

(and now y’all might understand why I still don’t think s8 was all that destiel-y. Cas spent 99% of the season either in Purgatory, under Naomi’s mind control, under a similar level of “mind control” by the tablet, and then swayed by Metatron’s lies about “fixing heaven.” Like, he literally had ZERO agency of his own for the vast majority of the season.)

There were the few seconds between when Cas stopped beating on Dean and dropped his sword where he was, I believe, himself. But as soon as he touched that tablet and this happened:

I think he was as powerless to resist the compulsion to serve the tablet as Kevin was in 7.21. He abandoned his entire life, stole his mom’s car, and just started driving without any clue as to  _why._ The tablet made him do it.

> KEVIN: I had to take my mom’s car. I-I think I had a seizure or something. [White light flashes in his eyes.] I’ve been chosen. It’s my birthright.  
> CHANNING: Oh, my God, Kevin, all the pressure you’ve been under. This isn’t one of those overachiever-teen meltdowns, is it?  
> KEVIN:  **I’m supposed to keep going. I’m not allowed to stop.**
> 
> and later:
> 
> [SAM hauls KEVIN to his feet and tries to take the bag with the tablet away from him.]  
> KEVIN: I’m sorry.  
> [SAM keeps trying to pull the bag from KEVIN’s grasp.]  
> KEVIN:  **I-I’m sorry. I… I don’t – I don’t know why, but I can’t let go of this.**
> 
> KEVIN:  **All I know is, this is – it’s for me. I’m supposed to keep it.**
> 
> KEVIN: I don’t want to be a prophet. 

He didn’t want to be a Word Keeper, but the tablet chose him. Compelled him. If he’d had any choice in the matter, he wouldn’t have just driven off with a weird light in his eyes spouting nonsense about his birthright and all that…

Much like Cas in 8.17:

> DEAN: So, this “Naomi” has been controlling you since she got you out of Purgatory?  
> CASTIEL: Yeah.  
> DEAN: Well, w-what broke the connection?  
> CASTIEL:  **I don’t know. I just know that I have to protect this tablet now.**  
>  DEAN: From Naomi?  
> CASTIEL: Yes. And from you.

Cas broke the connection with Naomi before he picked up the tablet, because of Dean’s words to him. BUT THE SECOND HE TOUCHED THE TABLET THAT DIDN’T MATTER ANYMORE. The tablet had chosen its defender, and the tablet didn’t care if Cas didn’t want the job. Just like it didn’t care if Kevin wanted the job.

At least, that’s how I always imagined the tablets functioned.

[spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [technically because hey i mean those tablets had knowledge and power of their own... scary things really](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/technically-because-hey-i-mean-those-tablets-had-knowledge-and-power-of-their-own...-scary-things-really)

 

[May 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160779328235/elizabethrobertajones-elizabethrobertajones)

81 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/160777739698/elizabethrobertajones):

> [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/160776911728/postmodernmulticoloredcloak):
>
>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/160776520322/ibelieveinthelittletreetopper-mittensmorgul):
>>
>>> [ibelieveinthelittletreetopper](http://ibelieveinthelittletreetopper.tumblr.com/post/160774536063/mittensmorgul-postmodernmulticoloredcloak-lol):
>>>
>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160774479635/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-lol-i-cant-believe):
>>>>
>>>>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/160768178817/lol-i-cant-believe-these-last-couple-of-days-ive):
>>>>>
>>>>>> Lol I can’t believe these last couple of days I’ve been writing about the kinds of control/manipulation experienced by Tasha and the others, Mary, Cas and it hasn’t occurred to me to include the control between Lucifer and Crowley like it’s not one of the biggest narratives about control in the season
>>>>> 
>>>>> That… is an excellent point. Because while we’ve been busy focusing on how Mary and Cas are being manipulated, Crowley’s had his control over Lucifer turned back around on HIM.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If Mary’s being controlled by the MoL, will she not just break free of that, but turn the control around on  _them_. And will whatever hold the nephilim has over Cas (and Kelly, presumably), be reversed to put it at their mercy?
>>>>> 
>>>>> And what could “flip the polarity” of the control?
>>>>> 
>>>>> For some reason I’m recalling Gadreel’s “alter the sigil, alter the spell” feelings about this. I know none of these things is the result of a sigil, but the principle seems to apply…
>>>> 
>>>> Really Crowley has been a big parallel all season…trying to protect his family, control forces that can’t be controlled - like fate and time. And his HUBRIS trying to control Luci is the same as a lot of the hubris going on all over, especially with Sam and Dean.
>>> 
>>> why. doesn’t. tumblr. tell. me. when. people. add. things. to. my. posts. (but. only. sometimes. which. is. worse).
>>> 
>>> But yeah, good points. Although I’m not sure we know everything about what Crowley has been doing this season… :)
>> 
>> Dangit I nearly answered this with a reference to 10x05 as if it was from this season because I’ve watched it TWICE this week but you know what
>>
>>> MARIE : Well, in Hell House, Sam and Dean burnt the house down, to take out the one tulpa they hunted.
>>> 
>>> DEAN : Yeah, yeah, you kill the symbol, you kill the tulpa. It’s a- actually, a pretty good start.
>> 
>> They already mentioned Gadreel once very recently… And this was a thing that Dabb also used in 9x22 to “defuse” Tessa, playing off that concept. 
>> 
>> And in 12x13 they altered the spell to show a corny romance reunion instead of punting someone through time like they were supposed to… Anyway, the sigil was the same but the spell was different. 
>> 
>> I was also thinking when I watched 12x19 just now that it “flipped the polarity” if you use it as a buzzword to describe flipping things over between Dagon and Lucifer as the parents to Cas and Kelly as the nephilim’s chosen family unit. 
>> 
>> (Which, also, I guess is a theme about found family over blood family, as Lucifer and Dagon are about as close to “family” as you’d get on that side… I was also just thinking about in 10x05 for the Wayward Son song, they substitute Cas for Adam, and Sam and Dean have to ask who it is. Even though Bobby is there, the family lineup is WRONG and the fact it’s Cas who’s been left out is obvious that there’s a wrong interpretation in who’s supposed to be this type of sentimental family…) 
>> 
>> I also had another thought about something else flipping but I had to do socialising this evening and my brain is now sludge so that’s all you’re getting on this even though this post is definitely about something I had much deeper thoughts only in the last hour or so :P
> 
> [@soluscheese](https://tmblr.co/mYDb1Q4mpj2SPUNnZ9bsQDw) replied to your post
>
>> There’s also the thing in 12.12 with the Lance - breaking it broke the curse; “the magic’s in the craftsmanship.” A more extreme example of altering the sigil, but still one that technically works. It could also count of an extreme example of breaking something (pre-established rules, traditional narrative) to make it better.
> 
> Aaah thank you! I knew there was a much better, more obvious example :D

I’d been thinking about the only time I can recall recently where the sigil COULDN’T be altered this way, in 11.14, and the protective sigil Delphine carved into herself that was tied to her life force. Instead of altering or destroying the sigil, she used the power of the Hand of God, which effectively broke the sigil’s power anyway (that’s when Lucifer was able to zap in to the submarine).

It seems like the exception that proves the rule, though.

[spn 12.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.22) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[May 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160785277010/in-the-vessel-by-saying-the-hand-of-god-broke)

7 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: In "The Vessel", by saying the Hand of God broke the sigil on Delphine's body, you're pretty much saying Lucifer stood there waiting for a way into the submarine that he wasn't expecting. I'm more inclined to think Lucifer used that spell to break the wardings, since he arrived next to the table when he brought Dean back, and I see no sign of the spell not being used.**

Eh… it’s unclear if it’s Delphine’s activation of the hand of God or Lucifer’s spell that breaks through the warding… because both happen simultaneously.

Well, because his getting there involved time travel, we can’t honestly say for sure if the spell simply directed him to land at that exact moment when the warding was broken, or else why didn’t he show up five minutes SOONER, you know? He didn’t have to show up AT THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT if he’d been able to break through the ward on his own, you know? He could’ve chosen to break through the ward ten minutes sooner, when Dean already had the hand of god but it hadn’t been used yet. But he didn’t…

[spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [kajuned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kajuned)

 

[Jul 11, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162880452235/because-of-mary-bracelet-in-the-gifset-i-cant)

49 notes

**Anonymous asked: Because of Mary bracelet in the gifset: I can’t remember, is there any connection between Mary/ the Campbells and the men of letters? It was Henry Winchester, who worked with the MoL, right? So why does Mary have a pendant of secret organization, she doesn’t even quiet know exists? (Ugh, I really need to rewatch!)**

[tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/162875439092/because-of-mary-bracelet-in-the-gifset-i-cant):

> Well, Mary thought they were a myth so hunters knew about it. Also I’m not sure the symbols are solely related to the MoL I would think they would be relatively generic magical / supernatural symbols that were borrowed by the MoL? I think that’s generally the idea behind the whole thing tbh, that hunters and MoL are basically the same thing at the base, barking up the same tree, but one is guerrilla warfare and the other is organised.
> 
> We’ll see them come together in the end under Salmon Dean :)

 

One prevailing theory at the time, back in s8, was that it was possible the Campbell Family had been one of the elite trusted hunter families that had worked secretly with the MoL, thus explaining Samuel’s extensive knowledge that went far beyond some of the stuff that even John or Bobby amassed during their long lives hunting and dealing with the Supernatural in ways that most other hunters never did (like with the Yellow Eyed Demon, the Colt, Bobby’s vast library of lore, etc.).

But Samuel even had Colt’s actual diary, and a cure for vampires, and none of that was knowledge any other hunter had ever heard of at the time.

But Samuel may have been a young man or only tangentially affiliated with the MoL through other older family members by the time they were overrun by Abaddon in 1958. I mean Mary was born in 1954, so Samuel still could’ve been in his mid-late 20′s, and not the direct contact with the MoL for his family. Yet after the dissolution of the MoL, a lot of the lore and artifacts could’ve been left to him without any other explanation for their origin. And there were a lot of other protective sigils on that bracelet. Makes sense he’d want Mary to wear it.

[men of letters vs hunters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/men-of-letters-vs-hunters) [samuel campbell](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/samuel-campbell) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [spn 8.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.12) [spn s6](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s6) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols)

 

[Oct 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166649957960/bold-sartorial-statement-ozonecologne)

198 notes

[bold-sartorial-statement](http://bold-sartorial-statement.tumblr.com/post/166633624998/ozonecologne-rosewhipped22-ozonecologne):

> [ozonecologne](http://ozonecologne.tumblr.com/post/166630450463/rosewhipped22-ozonecologne-im-sorry-but-this):
>
>> [rosewhipped22](http://rosewhipped22.tumblr.com/post/166592331943/ozonecologne-im-sorry-but-this-is-so-stupid):
>>
>>> [ozonecologne](http://ozonecologne.tumblr.com/post/166592252983/im-sorry-but-this-is-so-stupid-youre-telling-me):
>>>
>>>> i’m sorry but this is so stupid. you’re telling me that dean winchester would not paint a devil’s trap in front of the door? you’re telling me that a demon could just walk into that hotel room with all the warding they did? it’s just not realistic, barb
>>> 
>>> asmodeus is a prince of hell though and the devil trap did not work on Ramiel in s12.  He walked right through that bad boy. 
>> 
>> yeah but azazel (also a prince of hell) in season 1 couldn’t cross the railroads - that’s why he needed jake talley - so what is The Truth
> 
> But that’s a devil’s trap made out of iron. Most are just painted.

Not only was it made out of iron, but it was “special” and huge and powerful. They imbued it with Bonus Woo-Woo. And all the demons released from the hellgate together were enough to break the warding, which allowed Azazel to cross the warding. But they had to break it FROM THE INSIDE.

That wasn’t a standard devil’s trap, which demons can ENTER but then are TRAPPED. That one was designed to keep things OUT. Possibly even specifically a demon like Azazel who’d be interested in opening the hellgate.

It was almost a  reverse devil’s trap.

I mean, they never went into specifics like that, but it just makes logical sense. If it had been a regular standard devil’s trap, Azazel would’ve been able to cross in (like any other demon has always been able to walk INTO a devil’s trap), he just wouldn’t have been able to  _leave_  again.\

[spn 2.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.22) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [princes of hell](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/princes-of-hell)

#  [What you doin’ Bucklemming](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166651646225/what-you-doin-bucklemming)

[Oct 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166651646225/what-you-doin-bucklemming)

87 notes

[dinosaurrainbowstarfish](https://dinosaurrainbowstarfish.tumblr.com/post/166625157210/what-you-doin-bucklemming):

> Ok so in yesterday’s episode (2), we saw Jack reading the Bible and gaining some kind of knowledge about God, through reading, as he tells Asmodeus.
> 
> WHEN did he read about God?
> 
> Because in the episode? He’s reading Song of Solomon. You might know it as Song of Songs, Canticles, or Canticle of Canticles.
> 
> For those of you who haven’t read the Bible, Song of Solomon is…unique. And by that I mean it’s soft porn. Full stop.
> 
> It’s also one of two books of the Bible that does not mention God at all. (the other is Esther. Jack should have read Esther. It’s a lil bloody, but overall more…story?)
> 
> Song of Solomon is literally just porn. 
> 
> so WHEN did Jack read about God? But when Jack opened the Bible, Song of Solomon was the last book I wanted him to flip to. And here’s why–
> 
> Song of Solomon is sandwiched between two incredibly sad books. The first is Ecclesiastes- arguably the most depressing book in the Bible. Major themes include “everything we do is worthless and we’re all gonna die” and “human wisdom is meaningless”. Now, if you’re willing to spend some time delving into the text, the book is a lot more nuanced. But if you’re giving it a cursory reading? It’s pretty depressing.
> 
> The book right after Song of Solomon is Isaiah. Again, a deep book with a lot of meaning, but if you’re reading it for the first time and without a way to look at context/understand themes in writings/etc (like Jack, because he’s actually a baby and isn’t talking about this with a group or looking at commentary or anything), it’s gonna be REALLY really depressing. It’s about about humanity being unholy and needing to be made holy because God is holy. If Jack read about God enough to say “I’ve read about him,” he’s most certainly read Isaiah, if we’re working off the assumption that Jack flipped the book open and then started reading chronologically from that page. If he skipped around, this meta is useless. But I feel like he would open to a page and start reading from there, and we know he first opened to Song of Songs.
> 
> So Jack’s understanding of God comes from Isaiah. His willingness to do something weird because “God wanted him to” makes sense then, as 1) Isaiah was a prophet who told people what God wanted them to do and 2) God told Isaiah to do some really weird stuff. Like, “get a pair of underwear, wear it once, then go bury it at this location and wait for a few months.”
> 
> Also, apparently Jack can read Bibles now without setting them on fire. Coolio.
> 
> [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q) [@gneisscastiel](https://tmblr.co/mX2awapd-T5EiWuSgEvlZrg) 

Yes, he OPENED to Song of Solomon, looked at the page, but then in the very next shot when we see him settling in to read… it’s obvious he’s skipped back to the beginning, and was likely reading Genesis:

([x](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D288%26page%3D5&t=MDMwMjdkNmUzZmRlZGNjZTM4NDViNzA4MmRhZjIxOGQzN2NjY2I1ZSxRd3FpczI5cQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166651646225%2Fwhat-you-doin-bucklemming&m=1)) He actually started on page 1, and presumably read the entire thing.

Also, I’ve already read several posts about the whole “Jack didn’t set the bible on fire thing,” and I believe that that’s exactly WHY Dean tossed him the bible. Dean wanted to “test” Jack’s power the same way Cas did in 12.08… Now that we actually have a better idea of HOW Jack’s power works (i.e. it lashes out without his conscious choice, mostly in response to NEGATIVE FEELINGS. Like, maybe Kelly’s terror and confusion and general state of wtf when the King of Hell teleported her out to a motel room where a bunch of crazy people were telling her that Lucifer was actually the President and the father of her unborn baby…). Jack’s power may have been “activated” in a protective instinct by Kelly’s negative emotions, exactly the way we saw President Lucifer scorch the bible BECAUSE OF HIS EXPRESSED NEGATIVE EMOTIONS, and not just from physically handling the bible itself in the exact same episode.

(Bucklemming canon is often this convoluted, but at least they do tend to be internally consistent with the fuckery).

So as long as Jack’s power isn’t being ACTIVELY used for negative purposes, he’ll probably be fine juggling bibles or sleeping on a bed of bibles or just rubbing bibles all over his nougaty little face. But if he does flip the switch and “go dark,” I bet some sort of religious symbol is destined to go FWOOOOSH in a big fireball… 

Like MoC Dean was fine touching holy water and leaving devil’s traps, but DEMON Dean, who was the “fully powered up” version of MoC Dean was scorched by holy water, held by devils traps. I think Jack and “Jack’s powers” are operating on a similar metaphysical sort of dynamic.

[spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics)

#  [Sun ain’t gonna shine anymore](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166787970475/sun-aint-gonna-shine-anymore)

[Oct 25, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166787970475/sun-aint-gonna-shine-anymore)

14 notes

I watched 9.18 again today, and throughout the entire episode (as per usual when I watched this episode) my brain was just screaming THEEEEEEMES the entire time.

**CASTIEL** : H-Hannah, what happened here?  
[HANNAH looks at the sigil and then back to CASTIEL]  
 **CASTIEL** : Yeah, I… I heard it, too. What was it?  
 **HANNAH** : I don’t know. It, uh, it sounded familiar. It sounded like heaven. It’s so strange down here. I, uh, followed the tone and found so many of my brothers and sisters had, as well. It felt safe here, and then the doors slammed shut and a strange angel arrived. He said he worked for the new God.  
 **CASTIEL** : For Metatron?  
 **HANNAH** : Mm-hmm. He made us an offer… join Metatron, fight for him, and those that did would one day be allowed to return to heaven.  
 **CASTIEL** : Return to heaven?  
 **HANNAH** : I didn’t believe him, either. But he said he would take us home. Some angels joined him. My friends and I refused, and, uh…  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m sorry for your loss. For all our loss.

Cas asks Hannah why she was there, and she didn’t know… she was drawn to the Horn because it “sounded like Heaven." BUT IT WASN’T HEAVEN IT WAS A TRAP. She believed the lie of "paradise.” She and the other angels were so desperate to return they were willing to believe the lie. At least she was left alive– for now– when all the other angels with her were killed for refusing to accept Metatron as their “new god.”

Meanwhile Castiel continues to have “no other choice” as the rest of the angels continue to press him into service as their leader despite him constantly saying he doesn’t want the job.

At the end of the episode, after his manipulation by and meeting with Metatron, Cas borrows that tool of deception that ensnared him, Hannah, and all those other angels into Metatron’s lie in the first place and uses the Horn of Gabriel (False Paradise!) to draw his angel army to him instead of leaving them to be lured into Metatron’s lies… because Cas has no other choice…

This is made textual when Cas discovers the Mark of Cain on Dean’s arm. Cas is horrified that Dean would have taken this power upon himself, and Dean so casually refers to it as a “means to an end.” Without any other recourse, Cas resigns himself to picking up the gauntlet that Metatron threw down to him and takes the power of the Horn upon himself… because he had no other choice. At least back then Cas could see through the manipulation because Metatron pulled back the curtain and showed all his cards.

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE WHY DID I WATCH THIS AGAIN?!

[spn 9.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.18) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [mark of cain](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mark-of-cain) [horn of gabriel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/horn-of-gabriel) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies)

 

 

[Nov 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167493710830/i-was-curious-if-you-have-any-theories-on-why)

33 notes

**Anonymous asked: I was curious if you have any theories on why Bobby and the other hunters don’t seem to have anti-possession tattoos? Bobby didn’t have one as of his possession in s5, and in 12.05, a bunch of hunters were possessed during Asa’s wake.**

I mean it seems downright dumb, doesn’t it? I’d been flipping my shit for YEARS over the fact that Jared would tweet out once a year since 9.10 when Cas burned off his tattoo, something along the lines of “So do you think Sam got his tattoo back?” AND NO. JUST NO. With everything Sam’s been through since 9.10, if he hadn’t had the tattoo redone through EVERYTHING (and ESPECIALLY through his rampage in early s10, torturing demons for info on Crowley, and then Demon Dean, I mean… Sam is just not that stupid, you know? So it was EXCELLENT to finally get confirmation in 13.02 that yes he does have the tattoo again already.

He’s got ALL the personal reasons in the world for wanting that extra level of protection against possession.

Then again, we’ve also seen how easy it is for a very determined demon to bypass that particular security measure… just burn it off. Linda Tran demonstrated that to us in 8.02. So while it’s GOOD to have, it’s not foolproof (and may result in even WORSE things happening to one’s body as a result. I mean, that’s why getting it done in a visible spot such as a forearm seems to make less sense than having it in a place that’s usually covered up (like on your chest, like Sam and Dean have it). Make it that much harder for a demon to get at it, or to just lop it off >.>

Bobby was the one who gave them the charms in the first place, and taught them most of what they know about demons. And as the resident “Paranoid Bastard” and demon expert, you’d think He would’ve jumped at the chance to protect himself even more than Sam and Dean did. Yet he never did… (he was possessed in 5.01, but we don’t know if the demon had to first relieve him of his antipossession charm, you know? I’m assuming Bobby was jumped by the demons at some point, and they were pretty damn determined to possess him. Worse came to worst, I suspect they would’ve happily carved Bobby up to remove that tattoo if he’d had one, because they had reason to possess him SPECIFICALLY in that situation. Maybe it was for the best in that case that he didn’t have the tatoo…)

As for other hunters, it’s quite possible that most of them don’t have REASON to get the tattoo. In addition to all the hunters we met in 12.06, we also met folks like Wally who were specialists in their fields. A hunter who primarily goes after rougarou or vampires and never has any dealings with demons wouldn’t even think to get one. I don’t think the Witch Twins necessarily had a specialty, but as Bobby said way back in s1, demons weren’t even really a thing most hunters ever dealt with in their entire careers until the apocalypse prep started shaking things up…

But even by 12.06, we learn that even POST-apocalypse, most hunters still consider demons Big Game above their pay grade. Sort of like Sam and Dean vs Specky the Wonderdemon in 1.04.

The ones that really bug me are the people Sam and Dean KNOW have had dealings with demons, specifically Jody and to a lesser extent Max and Alicia, and haven’t encouraged them to get tattooed. And heck, even MARY.

I’d love to see it confirmed that Jody’s had the tattoo since 12.06, and that Mary also went out and got one done since then. It’s just too easy to pull off a charm during a fight with a demon, and the tattoo is just an extra measure of safety (though still not infallible).

[spn 12.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.06) [spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [spn 1.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.04) [spn 8.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.02) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [antipossession tattoo](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/antipossession-tattoo) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

#  [Again with the horns…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167979285710/again-with-the-horns)

[Nov 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167979285710/again-with-the-horns)

248 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/167976952228/again-with-the-horns):

> [fuckedupasusual](http://fuckedupasusual.tumblr.com/post/167976696395/again-with-the-horns):
>
>> I haven’t seen anyone talk about this but I can’t get it out of my head, so I guess I have to step out of my comfort zone and write about it myself?! Ehch…
>> 
>> ~~(I also feel like the only person in this fandom who enjoys this character. But what can I say, I have a soft spot for cheesy old fashioned villains…)~~
>> 
>> In 13x07, when Asmodeus enters the bar and is super not impressed by Lucifer, he flicks him across the room doing THIS gesture:
>> 
>> (screenshot cred to [HoN](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com&t=YTk4MjA5MTZlYmUwODVlNTBiMzI3MGZjYjFmYjQ3OTc5NGUxMDIyNSxMMk5nTFFTSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167979285710%2Fagain-with-the-horns&m=1))
>> 
>> The camera focuses on it and his shining white suit is highlighting it even more, yelling „Here, look at this!“.
>> 
>> First thing that came to my mind was this:
>> 
>> And I really like how they tie every character to Jack (Lucifer’s tan jacket etc etc). I know this shirt has been written about before but forgive me, I really can’t remember any meta. Feel free to chime in.
>> 
>> Now, back to the symbolism of horns (Wanek & Co really like them horns)
>> 
>> I did some[ research](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecphorizer.com%2FEPS%2Fsite_page.php%3Fpage%3D571%26issue%3D38&t=NjkwNzBlMDFlY2RjZTViM2Q0Nzg1ZjE3MjcxOWY2MGZhMDRkODU4NSxMMk5nTFFTSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167979285710%2Fagain-with-the-horns&m=1) (because who needs to work at work, eh? Not me, apparently) and I found some interesting stuff which I thought is right in line with the rest of our Asmodeus research so far:
>> 
>> _The strength, power and supremacy were but a part of the symbolism of horns. The other was virility - procreative vigor._   _Even the use of the oxen to pull the plow had its sexual connotation. […]Horns were an erotic stimulant._
>> 
>> _Stag horns in particular were an old symbol of cuckolds. Christianity, too, sought to discourage the pagan worship of horns and depicted the Devil himself as wicked with bestiality, and thus horned. […]In addition to physical strength and generative power, horns symbolized mental and spiritual strength as well._
>> 
>> The last bit immediately brought my thoughts back to THIS scene:
>> 
>> Asomdeus meditating / trying to find Jack (followed by some serious genital displaying manspreading). But agh, what is this?! 
>> 
>> SPN, again with all the hand symbolism. But I won’t digress… I’ll save this one for another into-the-void-scream.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Back to the horns…
>> 
>> _The Lord said to Joshua, “…and seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns …and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.” And when they blew, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down!_
>> 
>> Oh shit, didn’t I read some meta about Joshua/Jericho x SPN?!
>> 
>> _The words “horn” and “corn” are synonymous – cornucopia, unicorn.[…]_
>> 
>> _Charms to avert evil have long been shaped like horns. These, or making a sign of the horn with the fingers and “butting” with them, wards off the “evil eye.”_
>> 
>> From another [source](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fumich.edu%2F%7Eumfandsf%2Fsymbolismproject%2Fsymbolism.html%2FH%2Fhorns.html&t=NzFiYzkzODFjMzYyZDczYTc5ZTMxNDFjMWY1MjA5ZjEzMzdhNmQwMyxMMk5nTFFTSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167979285710%2Fagain-with-the-horns&m=1):
>> 
>> _„Can be phallic in the sense of masculine penetration […] Can be fabulous, though, when thought of with the mystical unicorn.“_
>> 
>> This, I find very interesting. I always primarily associated horns with evil. But it seems quite the opposite. Which falls in line with this season’s themes of „things that aren’t the things they look like“/“black/white/grey“… and rainbows and unicorns, I guess?
>> 
>> [Originally posted by deanilostmyshoe](https://tmblr.co/ZYSX3j24joUlj)
>> 
>> _Sacrificial breads and cakes were crescent shaped, in deference to the moon gods, which of course wore horns. French croissants still are._
>> 
>> Here is a nugget (nougat) for all food meta fans. Can’t wait to see Jack enjoy a croissant.
>> 
>> I really have no idea where I was going with this (because this is my first ever attempt at sth similar to a meta post) but there you have it. Thoughts?
>> 
>> [@tinkdw](https://tmblr.co/mfCCEp6XoX-GAEcJPdBiLxA) [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q) [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) [@naruhearts](https://tmblr.co/mSydB_1ug2cd-c-bcb5iPtA) [@floralmotif](https://tmblr.co/mlFJhruyNoEmi31ZmmbClMw)[@amwritingmeta](https://tmblr.co/mJMxShJRyz49M5xA_f12xGA)[@thejabberwock](https://tmblr.co/mG3EFNwljXQKXrX6Txw_ZFg) [@bluestar86](https://tmblr.co/m-wUC-tY8dlf7K9XGjK6Xkw) [@postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://tmblr.co/mf4M6zzYHBBds6ET4AADySQ) and anyone who wants to comment on this
> 
> Aah this is really interesting! I noticed that gesture but I didn’t even think to link it to Jack’s t-shirt :D
> 
> I know we were relating it to Jack but in a very ironic way, and sympathetic that it was referring to him harming people without meaning to but just because they were “messing with him” they might get the horns. I think Asmodeus is exactly the sort of character to take it on face value and think it’s a really cool slogan to define himself by… But he’s one of the first characters to intentionally MESS with Jack and as soon as Jack realised he was not good, *Asmodeus* was the one who “got the horns” so to speak, of Jack banishing him.

Horns and banishing… also in 13.07, right after AU Kevin’s spell succeeds and Lucifer dives through the portal, and before AU Michael makes his anger known, Kevin does this:

Interesting that we have this “sign of the horns” as a celebratory gesture with the glowing cross window in the background.

But the first thing the horns on Jack’s t-shirt reminded me of back in 13.01 was Randy Bull from 12.06:

**Randy** : Randy. Randy Bull. Ah! [he mimics bull horns with his fingers] Watch out for the horns, right? 

But Randy’s horns were a bit different:

He made the horns on HIMSELF, and he’s the one ended up mounted like a trophy (on the ceiling instead of the wall, but…)

The other thing I immediately thought of was Larry. As in, Dean rode him, and was awesome in 12.11, [even if Larry’s horns were only painted on](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157889464525/justanotheridijiton-spntapeball-birthday-bulls):

yeehaw.

And then practically everything about the Stampede Motel was covered in horns, from the light fixtures in the hallway to the longhorns mounted on the wall above the double-sided cowboy and cowgirl pictures. I mean, there were A LOT of horns in that place… even embossed into the fancy r[ed bull sofa (which has made multiple other appearances in the show):](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165815045540/justanotheridijiton-prop-reuse-red-bull)

I lol’ed about Sam being confused about how Ketch escaped the bunker at the end of 13.07, and had his own sort of wtf-oh-shit moment when Dean finally proved he was really Arthur Ketch, while standing under a deer head (literally the only horns in Nick’s Bar, and that’s where Sam was standing… it’s at the very end of [my long reply here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167960277635/in-the-bar-when-cas-and-lucifer-are-talking-did))

(I’m not even gonna touch on other horns from the past– not even the ones uses as weapons– other than to mention they’ve been associated with Heaven, uncovering the truth, etc.)

One last thing… a reminder that [this gesture is a staple in rock music](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165605433570/ibelieveinthelittletreetopper), made popular by Ronnie James Dio when he was with Black Sabbath, it’s a gesture used to ward off the evil eye (malocchio, which I’ve only thrown on this post in hopes to be able to find it again because tumblr search sucks :P).

[spn 12.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.06) [spn 12.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.11) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [you rode larry!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-rode-larry%21)[sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [malocchio](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/malocchio)

 

[Dec 11, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/168447066850/golly-that-was-so-disturbing-and-stressful)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Golly, that was so disturbing and stressful! :) And Jensen down right scared me as Dean when we pulled his gun on Kaia. A question though! As cool as it looked when the angels were in formation breaking the warding, I wondered why they didn’t just use blood sigils? Some collective sigils would have probably blasted them all away to Oz as Sam says. Anyway, let’s hang in there together till January! :)**

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, I think there are limitations on sigils? Like, the angel has to be present and in full view of it. Like, in 9.01, Dean used a sigil on the angels in the hallway at the hospital, while Gadreel was inside the room directly behind his back and was entirely unaffected by it. So I’m thinking at the very least it’s a line-of-sight thing? Possibly also affected by distance, but I have no idea if that’s true either.

(Yes, I know Anna used the sigil from the next room back in 4.09, and it worked to ban Cas and Uriel both anyway. But for whatever reason Sam and Dean clearly did not think that banishing would work, so they didn’t even bother trying it.

Also, in 13.01 Jack was negatively affected by the banishing spell as well, though maybe if Jack had performed the banishing with his own blood, that may have solved that problem (after all Cas used the banishing on Zachariah in 4.22 and was unharmed by it himself).

But there’s also an element of unpredictability surrounding Jack. Things just seem to… go the way Jack subconsciously wants them to go… especially when it involves other people doing his will. I saw it suggested that Jack has wings and knows how to teleport himself around, so why didn’t he simply teleport to safety instead of huddling up in the wreckage and suggesting they open a portal to an au to escape the angels. But Jack has never teleported anywhere  _with other people in tow_. It’s possible he hasn’t even realized that it would be possible, let alone whether he himself could pull it off.

But Jack DID know that he could tap into Kaia’s dreamwalking ability. He DID know that he could probably use that ability to open a portal to the world where he wanted to end up (and then probably hoped he’d be able to reverse the process after they’d saved Mary so they could all come home again). But like so many of Jack’s attempts at consciously choosing to use his power, something went horribly, horribly wrong…

Just like he couldn’t understand Kaia’s resistance to agreeing to help him after he freed her from the rehab facility, and became grabbing and demanding when she refused to go with him, he also can’t understand what went wrong here.

Back to the warding sigils… They also didn’t know if there were even MORE angels out there somewhere ready to move in on them, or keeping an eye on this entire situation. It seems like they had time to do ONE THING before holing up in the wreck, so they chose the thing that would guarantee them at least a few moments to regroup and look over their options on what to do next, regardless of how many angels were currently trying to break into the boat to smash them all.

It was already made clear to us that Dean was Not Thinking Clearly About Anything after Jack showed him that vision of Mary (and GAH I wish Jack would learn that showing people stuff like that has real and direct consequences.. like making people incapable of considering things rationally…).

Sam was also compromised by seeing that vision, and NEITHER of them were really acting rationally from the moment Jack showed them that vision (just like Cas stopped acting rationally the moment fetus Jack showed him that vision in 12.19… I mean  _it’s just not natural_ doesn’t even begin to describe how invasive Jack’s “innocent” little visions can be.)

It WAS ooc for Dean to hold a teenager at gunpoint while demanding she help them do this horrifically dangerous thing (that Billie explicitly warned him against just a few episodes ago). It’s like nothing Dean (or Sam) did from that moment on was prefaced with any sort of rational decision making aside from WHAT CAN WE DO TO GET TO MOM AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE REGARDLESS OF SAFETY OR SANITY OR THE SENSIBLE AND CONTINUED COHESION OF THE MULTIVERSE?!

Well look at me going entirely off topic… >.>

[spn 13.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.09) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Mar 1, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171434561615/camera-angle-anon-also-asks-that-was-a-lot-of)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: Camera Angle Anon also asks: That was a LOT of editing at the very end. Every phrase Cas listed from the spell had a Dean+fuzzy Sam reaction shot. Made me take notice but I'm not sure what we were supposed to see? Can't wait for the episode to be on the CW app so I can watch it again**

YES. I need to watch it again. I mean, I have it on my dvr, but Mr. Mittens will be home any minute and I don’t want him walking in at the middle and spoiling anything, so I can wait. :P

But yes, there’s a LOT of details I need to rewatch for– including the spell ingredients, because THE SEAL OF SOLOMON?! I mean… first of all flashbacks to all the other Song of Solomon references earlier this season, and now they need the ring that apparently gave Solomon the authority to rule, as well as the power to control demons (and talk to animals because that’s always nice too I guess?).

And I supposed we’ll find out more about this Most Holy Man whose blood they need in next week’s episode conveniently titled “A Most Holy Man.”

But we already knew about the grace of the archangel from 13.07.

Also, “fruit of the Tree of Life?” Like… the Forbidden Fruit they used in the spell in 10.23 that unlocked the Mark of Cain and released Amara? Or some other tree of life?

I AM SO INTERESTED TO KNOW.

[spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 10.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.23) [song of solomon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/song-of-solomon) [sigils and symbols](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sigils-and-symbols) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02)


	58. Chapter 58

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Supernatural Weapons

[Jan 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156454770670/i-dont-get-the-frustration-over-billie-being)

52 notes

**Anonymous asked: I don't get the frustration over Billie being killed by an angel blade- isn't that how April died?**

Yeah, it is. I apologize, because I’m so far behind on the dash this morning from trying to reply to folks, having to run errands in the real world, and just trying to catch up with everyone’s reactions, but I’ve got like 12 tabs open with stuff to reply to/address, and this is one of them. So *closes that other tab and checks it off the list* LET’S STATE WHAT WE KNOW SO WE CAN COLLECTIVELY STOP HARPING ON LARGELY IRRELEVANT STUFF! YAY!

I agree, the idiotic retcon of Reapers as some sort of ~variety of angels~ that operated on the same “possess a human” level as other angels was… idiotic. (9.03 strikes again)

From the outset, REAPERS DID NOT NEED VESSELS TO INTERACT WITH HUMANITY. Granted, what we learned about reapers in 1.12 was vastly  _expanded_  on in 2.01, but Tessa herself said everything you ever need to know about Reapers that makes them (in some ways) more powerful and more flexible than traditional angels:

> **Dean:** You know, you read the most interesting things. For example, did you know that reapers can alter human perception? I sure didn’t. Basically they can make themselves appear however they want. Like, say, uh, a pretty girl. You are much prettier than the last reaper I met.  
>  **Tessa:**  I was wondering when you would figure it out.  
>  **Dean:**  I should have known. That whole “accepting fate” rap of yours is far too laid-back for a dead chick. But the mother, and the body, I’m still trying to figure that one out.  
>  **Tessa:** It’s my sandbox, I can make you see whatever I want.

So, why would a reaper EVER need to occupy a human vessel? THERE’S NO NEED! REAPERS CAN MAKE THEMSELVES “VISIBLE” TO HUMANS IF THEY WANT! THEY CAN INTERACT WITH PEOPLE LIKE OTHER REAL PEOPLE DO! No vessel required. So in my head, because it makes ZERO sense to bring a real, human woman into the equation with April in 9.03, I’m still stuck on the idea that SHE WASN’T really occupying a vessel. Because otherwise that whole plot makes no freaking sense.

Same with the reaper nonsense about the Rogue Reaper in 8.19. It’s just… not necessary to assume they needed to borrow a body to do their jobs.

(oh, and by the way, Crowley killed that rogue reaper dude… WITH AN ANGEL BLADE)

Sort of the way the Cupids have always been shown, going back to 5.14. Visible one moment, invisible the next. With the ability to MAKE themselves appear however they wish (since the cupid in 8.23 didn’t have to be naked to do her job…)

So maybe Reapers have always been sort-of angels of a special class, like the Cupids (Cherubs, third class… maybe Reapers are something along those lines? The show has never clarified it.)

Also, going back to 1.12, they were just learning about reapers, and s1 was the season of HOLY SHIT THERE’S A LOT OF STUFF WE THOUGHT WAS ON THE BS LIST THAT IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT BS FREAK-OUT-A-THON. So I forgive them for their ignorance back then. They’ve definitely learned a lot of things about a lot of things since then. Like the fact that God flips a decent pancake.

Back to the point. Even in 2.01 Dean didn’t think there was any way to kill a reaper, because how do you kill death itself?

I mean, s12 Dean knows how you kill Death, but s2 Dean was still such a bab in the woods by comparison.

I saw someone else complaining that even Alastair needed a special ritual to kill a reaper in 4.15:

but he didn’t need the riual to KILL a reaper, he needed the ritual to BREAK A SEAL.

> **Sam:**  Basically, you kill a reaper under the solstice moon—tomorrow night, by the way—you got yourself a broken seal.

There’s a difference. He probably could’ve gone around town killing every reaper he walked past, but THAT WOULD NOT HAVE CAUSED THE SEAL TO BREAK. THIS RITUAL OF KILLING DEATH TWICE WOULD CAUSE THE SEAL TO BREAK.

Let’s skip ahead to s9 then, because 6.11 is infinitely fascinating to me, but had zero to do with attempting to kill a reaper. I just like Tessa and Death, so I figured I’d mention them in a nicer context than the various attempts to murder them…

We already talked about April. She killed Cas with an angel blade, and then Dean turned around and killed HER with one. We’d never had anything in canon to make us believe that ordinary reapers couldn’t be killed by angel blades. They’re pretty multi-purpose weapons. They kill nearly everything; angels, demons, monsters, people…

Let’s instead talk about 9.22, where several Kamikaze Angels had turned themselves into bombs in the name of Castiel (though manipulated into doing that under false pretenses by Metatron). We saw how that spell worked. Sigil carved into the chest, and activated by an act of suicide via angel blade. It’s even how Gadreel killed himself, also in the name of Castiel, in serving the greater good.

And Tessa had been recruited as one of these suicide mission agents. Dean may have unintentionally killed her (or allowed her to impale herself) with the First Blade, but she’d been prepared to kill herself with an angel blade and basically go nuclear, turning herself into a weapon.

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in canon to suggest that reapers are immune to angel blades. Period.

[spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [billie the reaper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/billie-the-reaper) [Death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Death-and-his-backup-dancers-doin-the-old-razzle-dazzle) [spn 1.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.12) [spn 2.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.01) [spn 4.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.15) [spn 6.11. for nostalgia's sake i suppose](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.11.-for-nostalgia%27s-sake-i-suppose) [spn 9.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.03) [spn 9.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.22)[spn 8.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.19) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157379274970/1-did-it-seem-just-with-lucifers-tone-and)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1) Did it seem (just with Lucifer's tone and position and Crowley calling him dog) that Lucifer was not at full power? like... that part of him in hell there was only the part that got away from the BMoL egg? 2) Crowley broke the lance which screws this next point over, but when someone said Michael had it to kill a brother (or something like that, I don't quite remember!) did you think that the Winchester's were going to take it to use against the nephilim(/Lucifer when they find him)?**

Hi there. First of all, I think there’s some misconception of what the egg thingy did. I made a post about it yesterday. Or the day before… Or this morning I guess… What is time even? :P

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157358532590/hey-friend-awesome-post-about-the-important-stuff>

The egg didn’t TRAP Lucifer. That wasn’t it’s purpose. It was to banish Lucifer from his vessel so that ROWENA’S SPELL COULD SEND HIM BACK TO THE CAGE. Or to the little kennel in Crowley’s throne room…

Second of all, I’m not entirely sure the cage is still stable enough to hold Lucifer. He’d been whispering through the cracks to Sam and Rowena all through early s11, after all. I think breaking out the Darkness damaged the cage…

How and why did he end up in Crowley’s kennel? Maybe Crowley just wanted a little payback, to call him Doggie or whatever.

And I think he only looks like his old vessel Nick because in Hell he can take on whatever form he chooses, like he did in the “stage cage” back in 11.09/11.10. It’s not a vessel, it’s just how he “looks.” since angels don’t have physical forms perceivable by human eyeballs and they have to show us /something/ other than a talking blob of light, you know?

I think, if anything, the Winchesters would’ve used the lance against Dagon and Asmodeus– aka the OTHER two yellow-eyed demons.

Because Sam and Dean DON’T KNOW THAT MARY STOLE THE COLT FROM RAMIEL.

AKA the only OTHER weapon they know of that can kill yellow eyed demons…

Which is why Crowley’s so desperately looking for it now, because he know the promise he made to Ramiel on behalf of all his siblings has been broken, and his neck is well and truly on the line now. He needs the Colt to save himself.

We know it doesn’t work on Lucifer. But Michael’s Lance would’ve. It was actually designed SPECIFICALLY TO KILL LUCIFER.

But Dean DOES have it, and Dean’s pretty clever with stuff like that. Maybe, as the true vessel of Michael, he’ll be able to fix it…

I don’t think they were intending to use either weapon on the nephilim.

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [the lance of michael](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-lance-of-michael) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157406732015/i-was-trying-to-answer-this-anon-a-minute-ago-and)

40 notes

I was trying to answer this anon a minute ago, and accidentally hit the POST button prematurely, and deleted the original message, but I copy/pasted it before I deleted my half-answer, because I didn’t want anyone to reblog and incomplete answer while I was actually finishing my thoughts on it >.>

Copy/pasted from my accidental nudging of the post button:

**Anonymous asked: I saw a tweet going around that said if John had been the one faced with the decision to give up what he stole to possibly save his boys, he would have done it immediately. And I think I agree. I’m not the biggest John fan, but I think it’s interesting how the show is destroying the “perfect mother” image of Mary. I wonder what John and Mary would think of each other if they could meet now.**

Well, the difference here is that John DID once give up the Colt… to Azazel, in a bargain for Dean’s life. in 2.01.

Honestly, the text of s2, especially from DEAN’S pov, expressed HOW WRONG Dean felt for that entire season. That was the source of all the “What’s dead should stay dead” stuff in the entire series.

DEAN RESENTED THE HELL OUT OF JOHN FOR BURDENING HIM WITH THAT, SO LET’S NOT TRY AND PRETEND THAT JOHN’S DEAL HERE WAS AN OBJECTIVELY GOOD THING.

In s1, John KEPT ALL SORTS OF INFORMATION from Sam and Dean, apparently “for their own good.” To “keep them safe.” It took a long time for him to realize that keeping them in the dark was actually putting them all in danger. Their ignorance of the larger forces at play DIRECTLY AFFECTING THEIR OWN LIFE AND SAFETY was detrimental to EVERYONE in the end.

Sam ended up possessed by Meg, because he and Dean hadn’t KNOWN that they should be protecting themselves. They hadn’t KNOWN about the Yellow Eyed Demon Azazel from the start. John had tried to control every aspect of their lives, to keep them in the dark and out of the way. Sending them on unrelated hunts to keep them too busy to interfere.

They were working at a MAJOR disadvantage, because of the secrets John kept from them. They spent most of s1, s2… heck, most of the SERIES playing catch-up to the cosmic forces that had been manipulating their ENTIRE LIVES, going all the way back to the dawn of time when Chuck locked Amara up. The Mark of Cain is their family legacy, after all. Mary’s deal with Azazel is just one step in the long chain of events leading back to that original “sin.”

I think a lot of Mary’s journey this season has paralleled the sorts of choices that John DID make himself back in s1. She is working from the information gleaned from his journal, after all.

Remember, from 1.21, the argument where John was angry that HE’D been kept out of the loop about Sam’s visions… despite having ignored multiple pleas for help from both Sam and Dean over the last year, including Dean’s plea in 1.09 when he was SITTING RIGHT THERE WITH MISSOURI, and ignoring Sam’s plea when Dean was literally given three weeks to live in 1.12. I mean, it took all the way until 1.22 to even get THIS much out of John:

> John: I’m surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn’t you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first – before me, before everything.  
> Sam: No, sir. Not before everything. Look, we’ve still got the Colt. We still have the one bullet left. We just have to start over, alright? I mean, we already found the demon…

He was still on a suicide mission to kill the demon at all costs, up to and including his own life. To Sam and Dean, revenge took a back seat to the “Saving People” portion of their mission statement.

Right now for Mary, she’s got to learn that same lesson. For her, though, it’s also coming from a sense of personal guilt… for the deal she’d made, for the fact that she hadn’t been able to stop her family from being destroyed over all of this. And that now she’s back, she’s trying to find something to keep living for.

THIS IS MARY’S JOURNEY. This is her character development.

In some ways, it’s running parallel to John’s, in some other ways it’s running parallel to Castiel’s back in s6, and in other ways it’s all her own.

Saying “John would’ve handed the Colt over if he’d been in Mary’s position there” is a false equivalency, and makes no freaking sense. John had never been in the same sort of position that Mary is in now. It’s unfair to imply he would’ve chosen differently if he had been.

Not to mention, right at the end, after Cas was cured and then asked what Ramiel had meant by that, that something had been stolen from him, the camera cut to Mary’s face. She was opening her mouth, about to speak– ABOUT TO CONFESS SOMETHING?!– when Dean spared her from having to fess up by deflecting with a comment about Ramiel being crazy.

What was she about to say? Was she going to make a similar dismissive statement? Was she about to pull out the Colt and say, “Hey, I found this lying around, maybe THIS is what he meant?” Who knows?

We also don’t know if Mary handed the Colt over to Ketch, or if he only got to “see it” (which is what he asked, if he could SEE it). Right now, we don’t even know who has the Colt, or if there are any bullets for it.

All of that remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Mary now knows just how far she can trust the MoL. Their gear might be useful, but the intel is HIGHLY SUSPECT.

Just as John had to learn in s1, Mary is slowly getting to the point where she realizes her own sons are more competent and useful as allies…

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [the ghost of john winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-ghost-of-john-winchester) [spn 1.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.21)[spn 1.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.22) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Feb 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157420704680/about-the-colt-and-its-bullets-samantha-smith)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: About the Colt and its bullets, Samantha Smith replied to a fan questioning her why Mary did not use the Colt, and tweeted that the Colt didn't have bullets.**

That’s what I figured. I mean, even back in s4 it was basically just a regular old gun. It took Ruby tinkering with it and showing Bobby how to MAKE THE CORRECT MAGICAL BULLETS for it to make it work again once the original 13 bullets were gone (the last of which was spent on Azazel in 2.22).

So even if the BMoL have the Colt, unless they figure out how to make the magic bullets, it’s just a gun.

Far as I know, Sam and Dean are the ONLY people on the planet who know how to make those bullets…

Also, while we’re on the topic of the Colt… I saw a wanky post about what Samuel Campbell could’ve possibly known about the Colt in order to tell Mary “bedtime stories” about it, such as the fact that there are only “five things in existence” that are immune to its bullets.

Well, Samuel had Samuel Colt’s journal in his personal library… so I assume he actually read the damn thing, you know? He might not have know what happened to the gun all those years ago, because we know it was left with Daniel Elkins’ ancestor (in 6.18, back in 1861, after Dean used it to kill the phoenix). And he and his family had kept it locked up all these years for safekeeping, probably on the orders of Colt himself.

Until John asked him for it in s1, and then we know what happened to it after that.

So… there’s absolutely no continuity errors involving the Colt here… for anyone who was concerned about that.

(my guess, when Sam and Dean find out the Colt is still around, they make themselves a stash of bullets for it immediately, if they don’t still have a few lying around somewhere…)

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18) [spn 2.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.22) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Feb 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157422356770/wasnt-it-crowley-the-one-who-gave-sam-and-dean)

2 notes

**Anonymous asked: Wasn't it Crowley the one who gave Sam and Dean the bullets in Abandon All Hope?**

Ooh, interesting… if he just had the bullets that Sam and Dean had kept with it when Bela had stolen it from them… who knows if Crowley figured out how to make more of them. I wouldn’t put it past him with his Witchy background… but Bela’s the one who pinched it in 3.10, and I assume she took any and all of the Winchesters’ current stock of magic bullets. And that’s what Crowley RETURNED to them in 5.10…

[spn 3.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.10) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the col](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)t

 

[Feb 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157442203670/i-wonder-what-the-colt-cant-kill-like-are-there)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: I wonder what the Colt can't kill. Like, are there five individuals that it can't kill or five groups of creatures?**

I’ve seen quite a bit of debate about this resurfacing lately… and I’ve seen old debates about this going all the way back to 5.10 when we first heard that factoid from Lucifer himself (after Dean shot him in the head with it and he didn’t die…).

Have we ever seen the Colt kill any angel? Maybe it doesn’t work on ANY angel? Could be… I mean, we’ve got no data on that.

I always assumed it wouldn’t work on God. And probably wouldn’t work on the Darkness. But they’re two halves of the same coin, so I lump them into one category anyway.

I also assumed it wouldn’t work on Death (and likely the other three Horsemen). I mean, you can kill the vessel, but you can’t kill a  _concept_ , you know? They’re just like personifications of concepts. Death is “dead,” yet people keep dying, you know?

Also always wondered if it would’ve killed Dick (or Leviathan in general), and figured it probably wouldn’t. They’re basically made of primordial ooze. They’re something /other/ entirely.

What would I imagine the last thing is? Let’s go with “bunnies.” I mean, that would just make Dean sad if it killed bunnies.

I’m kinda hoping they eventually clarify that statement, and since they’ve just made a point of bringing it up again, I’m assuming they will…

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [is it ridiculous that I keep typing 'the cold' instead of 'the colt'?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/is-it-ridiculous-that-I-keep-typing-%27the-cold%27-instead-of-%27the-colt%27%3F) [i mean does it make you sneeze yourself to dealt? can you be cured with chicken soup? incredible](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-does-it-make-you-sneeze-yourself-to-dealt%3F-can-you-be-cured-with-chicken-soup%3F-incredible) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157443228465/about-the-colt-unless-im-imagining-it-the-gun)

13 notes

**[thetomahawkkid24](https://thetomahawkkid24.tumblr.com/) asked: About the Colt - unless I'm imagining it, the gun didn't have a trigger on it when Mary handed it over? So in addition to having no bullets, they would have to find the trigger for it to work properly and given that Crowley was the one who gave Ramiel the gun, do you think Crowley has the bullets and the trigger ?**

Hi there! And yeah, I took my half-blind ass right up to the tv screen, and it certainly does look like the trigger’s missing. But that’s… actually a feature of the 1830′s era Colt Patterson model gun (which The Colt is… probably the forerunner of, since it was made in 1835, the night of the battle at the Alamo, and the Patterson was patented for commercial production in February of 1836). The trigger “folds” into the body of the gun and only appears once the hammer’s been cocked.

I mean, from 6.18, when Sam hands it over to Dean (and we get the Hello, Beautiful line that Ketch repeats in 12.12):

The trigger isn’t visible. But then after Dean fires it and drops it to the ground… we see this:

The trigger’s extended.

But I wouldn’t put it past Crowley to have removed some key piece of the gun before handing it over to Ramiel in the first place (firing pin? Maybe even the trigger?)… and I certainly wouldn’t expect him to have handed over any of those magical bullets.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Paterson](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FColt_Paterson&t=Yzk2MjhiMWQzYzgzYmU0MDI5YWZhYzU2NTRmZjU0NTUwYjRiMjYzMix5VHVaMDFYbw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F157443228465%2Fabout-the-colt-unless-im-imagining-it-the-gun&m=1)

[the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18) [sorry i couldn't get a good screenshot of the end of 12.12 yet](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sorry-i-couldn%27t-get-a-good-screenshot-of-the-end-of-12.12-yet) [home of the nutty hasn't finished capping the episode yet :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/home-of-the-nutty-hasn%27t-finished-capping-the-episode-yet-%3AP)[thetomahawkkid24](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/thetomahawkkid24)

 

[thetomahawkkid24](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/thetomahawkkid24)

[Feb 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157453253770/hello-do-you-think-that-the-lance-will-be)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hello! Do you think that the Lance will be repaired later in the season/series? I wonder if it has more history of its own, between the crafting and being owned by hell? History we'll find out about, that is. Also, I am (morbidly) curious what effect it would have on a human (besides the obvious - large pointy object in a body), seeing that its specific effects were crafted for 'evil' demons and 'good' angels. Thanks!**

Hi there! And yeah, I think on a human, it would have the same effect as anything that large being poked through a person…

I mean, that’s a huge bit of pointy metal. People are squishy. That’s never a good combination, you know?

But if Crowley’s theory was right, that the magic was in the runework and the craftsmanship, theoretically anyone with the skill necessary could reproduce and/or repair it…

Crowley might give it a try, but maybe it’s not something a demon can craft. I thought maybe Dean could attempt to fix it or build a new one. He’s good with weapons and as Michael’s vessel he might be uniquely capable of repairing it… (he is the Michael Sword after all).

Or even Cas. As an angel, he might be the only one in our little group with the power to construct another one. What was that blue light anyway? Was it just the effect of the “magic of the runework and craftsmanship” breaking, or was it a release of the sort of power we associate with the grace of an angel?

At the beginning of the episode, in the THEN segment, we were given a reminder of the power of the Hands of God. They all turned out to be one-hitters. One use, and the power they contained was spent. The Lance of Michael seemed to keep working repeatedly. After all, it worked on both Cas and then Ramiel. Its power wasn’t spent in a single use.

Could that be because Michael instilled a bit of his own grace in the runework? And was this power then passed on to Cas? Because this

looks a lot like an angel power-up of sorts.

We’ve been told by Dabb that there’s going to be a point this season when Cas seems “more powerful than he should be,” and I’m wondering if this ^^ is why…

And if so, maybe he’ll decide to “put that thing back where it came from” and repair the lance (to use either against Dagon and/or Asmodeus, or against Lucifer himself).

Interesting thoughts.

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the lance of michael](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-lance-of-michael) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157453554280/so-we-know-that-rubys-knife-doesnt-work-on)

4 notes

**Anonymous asked: So we know that ruby's knife doesn't work on yellow-eyed demons. I guess demon traps don't either (the bullets didn't) athough Ramiel avoided walking in one. So, they can be kiled by the Colt but do you think an angel blade would work (did they try one, i don't remember)? And do you think the lance could be fixed or Dean picking it up is just symbolic?**

Yeah, just before Sam stabbed Ramiel with the lance, Mary hit him in the back with an angel blade. It did nothing.

And I just replied to another anon about the lance, with a few wild spec theories on what may happen to it…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157453253770/hello-do-you-think-that-the-lance-will-be>

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Mar 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157958163235/hey-wondering-if-you-had-any-thoughts-on-how-mary)

12 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey, wondering if you had any thoughts on how Mary knew about Bobby when Sam started talking about the recipe for the Colt bullets. Do you think the boys told her about him? and about his help with the colt? if so, why would Mary still hand the gun over to the BMoL, knowing her son's history with the thing? idk, just wanting to know if you had any headcanons**

Well, we know she saw that pic of Bobby in the Journal back in 12.02. I expect there were a LOT of notations in the journal that read something like “Bobby’s recipe,” or “Bobby told us…” or “From Bobby’s journal,” or the like.

Even John knew Bobby. He probably mentioned that he left the boys with Bobby while hunting xyz thing here and there. Bobby was a huge part of their lives.

But no, I definitely do not think she knows the first thing about their connection to the Colt. Or the fact that DEAN KILLED THE YELLOW EYED DEMON THAT KILLED HER WITH IT.

I mean, I don’t think she would so lightly have handed it over to the MoL otherwise. She seemed to only believe it had been a “legend” that no hunter had seen in more than a hundred years, you know?

Just like the MOL had the wrong info on the Alpha Vamp, I think they really don’t know most of the Winchesters’ history.

And I’ll say it again, WHY HAVE NONE OF THEM READ THE SUPERNATURAL BOOKS? It would just save so much hassle and heartache here… :P

[spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [bobby!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bobby%21) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester)

 

[Mar 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157958515450/now-imagine-mary-would-have-told-them-about-the)

40 notes

**Anonymous asked: Now imagine mary would have told them about the colt. All would have been so much easier as it seesms that making bullets for it isn't all that difficult**

Yep. Silver bullets, a few general ingredients, and a short incantation. And now the MoL have the recipe. Or, at least Mick has the recipe.

But if they’d known going into Ramiel’s that Mary’s mission was to steal The Colt, they could’ve whipped up a few bullets for it to have ready to go. Even if they didn’t know Ramiel was a Prince of Hell, a demon hunt would’ve been an excellent “test drive” for the gun, and still would’ve made sense to “prove” it was really THE Colt and not just a knockoff like the one John had tried to pass off to Meg in 1.21.

She didn’t even have to tell them the MoL were involved in sending her there, just a mention that there was a rumor this demon had the Colt would’ve probably gotten them on board for retrieving it…

And imagine how that conversation might’ve gone… 

Mary: So this demon is supposed to have the Colt, I think we should try to retrieve it.

Dean: THE Colt? You mean like…  _the_  Colt?

Mary: Yeah. There’s supposedly only five things it can’t kill, but nobody’s seen it since Colt killed a phoenix with it in 1861…

Dean: You mean since  _I_  killed a phoenix with it in 1861.

Sam: *rolls his eyes* technically we killed a lot of other things with it since then.

Mary: You wha????

Sam: Yeah, long story, mom…

Gah. So much deception going on all around here…

[spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Apr 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159328286755/i-just-wanted-to-shyly-ask-couldnt-an-archangel)

17 notes

**[royalrowena](http://royalrowena.tumblr.com/) asked: I just wanted to shyly ask, couldn't an archangel blade kill Lucifer? I mean, if they could even put their hands on one, since Raphael is dead, Gabe is (supposedly) dead, and Michael is insane in the Cage? I mean, if Lucifer even still has his, it could be used against him. *shyly slips back out of your inbox***

NEVER BE SHY! Oh gosh. I’m a lumpy bagel in a bathrobe. Seriously. :D

Yeah, according to Gabriel in 5.19, his own blade could’ve killed him, and Lucifer’s blade DID kill him (or so we were led to believe >.>)

And Michael still theoretically has HIS blade in the cage… unless Crowley’s got that one final trick up his sleeve just in case and took it from Michael (if he is actually reduced to the quivering pile of goo that Lucifer keeps describing, it probably wouldn’t have even been that difficult) when he had his Cage Team researching and repairing the cage, and gleaning its secrets to do whatever it was he did to trap Lucifer in that body.

Or, the one I’m still considering, is that he programmed in a “self-destruct” to Lucfier’s vessel. Sort of like how the Soul Bomb in 11.23 would’ve eventually turned Dean into an unstable time bomb whether he used the trigger or not.

There’s also the fact that Crowley got a good look at the Lance before he broke it. And the magic was in the runework and in the craftsmanship. (It looked to me like there was quite a bit of angel grace involved in powering it up, but Crowley’s resourceful…). Could be he’s working on building a replacement, or at least something similar.

I mean, I wouldn’t write anything off as a possibility, but have we ever seen Lucifer even draw an angel blade? He killed Gabriel with GABRIEL’S OWN BLADE.

Interesting, though. I suppose someone would have to be pretty sneaky to get him to even pull it out of hiding, since he typically disposes of enemies with a thought or a snap of his fingers rather than relying on weaponry.

I’m still waiting for someone to remember that Dean’s got the Spear of Destiny tucked away in the bunker, probably in the box of porn where he’d been storing the Inner Key of Oz…

I mean, all the rest of these are just theoreticals at this point. We know the Colt doesn’t work on him. The only thing we knew 100% had been purpose-built to kill him is broken (at least for now).

[lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Apr 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159719514200/510-the-demon-crowley-is-making-a-deal-even)

15 notes

5.10:  The demon Crowley is making a deal; even as we speak, it's—going—down.

Where we learn so much more about Lucifer, demons in general, and Dean gets the Colt back for one single episode before Crowley takes it back.

**CROWLEY** : Lucifer isn’t a demon, remember? He’s an angel. An angel famous for his hatred of humankind. To him, you’re just filthy bags of pus. If that’s the way he feels about you, what can he think about us?  
 **SAM** : But he created you.  
 **CROWLEY** : To him, we’re just servants. Cannon fodder. If Lucifer manages to exterminate humankind, we’re next. So, help me, huh? Let’s all go back to simpler, better times, back to when we could all follow our natures. I’m in sales, dammit! So what do you say if I give you this thing, and you go kill the devil?

(I confess, I spent most of this episode trying to figure out what actually happened to the Colt at the end of it. We have written up and down about everything having to do with this episode in the past)

Dean gives Jo, someone he’s always had a more “sisterly” relationship with, the Last Night On Earth speech and is turned down, Bobby takes that horribly ominous family portrait, and Cas gives his version of the Last Night On Earth speech that’s horrifyingly more literal than Dean’s…

Cas wanders off to investigate the seemingly empty town’s burgeoning reaper population, and is almost immediately captured by Lucifer. They have a particularly interesting conversation, and we learn just how frighteningly mistaken Lucifer is about Castiel:

**CASTIEL** : You are not taking Sam Winchester. I won’t let you.  
 **LUCIFER** : Castiel. I don’t understand why you’re fighting me, of all the angels  
 **CASTIEL** : You really have to ask?  
 **LUCIFER** : I rebelled, I was cast out. You rebelled, you were cast out. Almost all of heaven wants to see me dead, and if they succeed, guess what? You’re their new public enemy number one. We’re on the same side, like it or not, so why not just serve your own best interests? Which in this case just happen to be mine?  
 **CASTIEL** : I’ll die first.  
 **LUCIFER** : I suppose you will.

Lucifer believes he and Cas are on the same side because they’ve both defied Heaven. But that’s where the similarity ends. Lucifer and Cas may both have “fallen” in that respect, but the essential difference that Lucifer just can’t understand is in  _what they fell for_.

Cas fell for Humanity, while Lucifer fell for pride and jealousy and a hatred of humanity…

Meanwhile the rest of our intrepid heroes are set upon by hellhounds and Jo is mortally wounded, and Bobby keeps Dean focused and on track when he stumbles after being emotionally compromised about Jo. Lucifer has wiped out this entire town as a sacrifice to raise and bind the horseman Death, and the “cosmic consequences” are already playing out for the Winchesters…

*Sam and Dean built a Hellhound Bomb*

*Jo and Ellen sacrifice themselves to give the Winchesters a shot at killing the devil*

*nothing about this ends well*

This is where we learn there are “five things” that the Colt can’t kill, and Lucifer is one of them. I don’t know if that’s just Lucifer SPECIFICALLY, archangels in general, or ALL angels, because we’ve never seen it used against another angel… and those “five things” are still entirely a mystery.

(Dean drops the Colt in the woods and Mittens nearly misses everything about Sam’s chat with Lucifer while trying to figure out why he didn’t bother picking it up again…)

**LUCIFER** : I was a son. A brother, like you, a younger brother, and I had an older brother who I loved. Idolized, in fact. And one day I went to him and I begged him to stand with me, and Michael—Michael turned on me. Called me a freak. A monster. And then he beat me down. All because I was different. Because I had a mind of my own. Tell me something, Sam. Any of this sound familiar? Anyway. You’ll have to excuse me. Midnight is calling and I have a ritual to finish. Don’t go anywhere. Not that you could if you would.

And heck, surface level that might sound rational to Sam. But Sam’s “difference” between himself and Dean isn’t based on his disdain for an entire SPECIES. Sam’s “rebellion” wasn’t about the desire to destroy a huge segment of creation because his daddy didn’t like him best anymore.

From a post s11 standpoint, knowing how Chuck used Lucifer to contain the Darkness so that all of creation could begin in the first place. That would kinda breed resentment toward said creation. But he never had a problem with any other part of creation– nature, Chuck’s supposed favorite part of his creation, was just fine with Lucifer. He only resented  _humanity_. And that’s never been Sam’s problem. Because no matter how he’s rebelled against John, against Dean, he’s never let go of that foundation of the Winchester Family:  _Saving People_.

No matter how much Sam might resent how he was raised, that he’s always felt like a freak or a monster, Dean’s never let him forget his own humanity.

(oh, and yeah, the Colt. When Cas came to save Sam and Dean while Lucifer’s back was turned finishing up the Death Summoning Ritual, he booped them out to safety sans Colt. I suppose Crowley swooped in and found it in the underbrush before it ever occurred to any of TFW to go back and look for it. Not like it even worked on the one thing they needed it to kill anyway…)

[spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics)

 

[Jul 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162605397700/hi-im-researching-for-a-fic-right-now-and-i-just)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: hi! I'm researching for a fic right now and I just have a little question: can Ruby's knife kill Crowley? I think it has never been actually used on him right?**

Dean used it to pin Crowley’s hand to the table [in 12.23](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D284%26page%3D8&t=YzAwMDA5ZTAwODExMjIwMDUyOWZhMWU3ZjhhYWQxZTk3MmMyNjBlMCxTVkFiczk3cg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162605397700%2Fhi-im-researching-for-a-fic-right-now-and-i-just&m=1) to keep him from following after them when they get a lead on where Cas is. From Crowley’s reaction face, I think it must’ve hurt:

They’ve threatened him with it numerous times over the years:

  * In 5.20, Sam tries to stab Crowley with it when he suddenly appears in the back seat, but Crowley disappears and Sam ends up stabbing the upholstery instead.
  * in 6.10, Meg nearly kills Crowley with it, but he overpowers her 
  * in 8.01 Dean tries to kill Crowley with the knife but Crowley ~uses witchcraft~ to make the knife burn Dean’s hand, forcing him to drop it
  * in 8.02 Dean attacks Crowley with the knife while he’s possessing Linda Tran… but Crowley smokes out before Dean can stab him
  * At the end of 8.19, Sam tried to attack Crowley with the knife, but he pinned Sam and Dean to trees before he got a chance
  * In 9.11 Dean sets the knife on the bar when Crowley approaches him about working together, but puts it away when he agrees to work with Crowley to look for the First Blade. It was more of a threat display and warning than a real attempt to hurt Crowley
  * in 10.10, Rowena’s hex bag under his throne induces Crowley to have a dream/vision of himself being stabbed to death with the knife (so it is something he has a legitimate fear of)
  * Sam threatens Crowley with the knife in 10.22, but instead of stabbing him, he uses a hex bag (presumably from Rowena?)
  * In 11.02 Dean pins Crowley’s hand to the wall with an angel blade and then threatens him with the demon knife, but he’s distracted by a noise from Amara’s room and when he returns Crowley has escaped (which is why I suspect in 12.23 Dean knew that Crowley wouldn’t be held very long by the knife pinning him to the table. he didn’t want crowley riding with them, but he at least wanted a head start)



And there you go, what I believe is a complete list of Crowley’s adventures dodging the demon killing knife of the Kurds (aka Ruby’s knife). As far as we know, yes it would’ve killed him if they’d ever stabbed him properly with it. :P

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [ruby's knife](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ruby%27s-knife) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley)

 

[Jul 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163065859070/between-the-colt-disappearing-after-510-to-the)

19 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: Between The Colt disappearing after 5.10 to The Colt being melted to pieces in 12.19....which do you think would have been a better way to say goodbye to the legendary weapon?**

Aw heck. That’s a tricky one, because the Colt is just the sort of legendary weapon that best exists in a state of limbo, you know? How did it disappear after 5.10? Why? (I mean we learned in 12.12 that Crowley had picked it up and gifted it to Ramiel, and it had been locked in his safe all these years until Mary liberated it, but we didn’t know that at the time…).

It’s such a potential game changer in terms of the fact that it CAN kill practically anything, solving problems too quickly for the narrative. Lizbob’s tag for it is delightfully on point: Chekhov’s kill-everything gun. It’s almost TOO powerful for its own good.

Just like Cas when he’s at full angel power, when the Colt is in the Winchesters’ hands, the narrative must be purposefully written around the giant bubble of Instant Solution To Every Problem that surrounds it. That’s what happened in 12.18. Sure, Dean was over-confident because he had the Colt in his pocket, but he’d been expecting MONSTER and instead got knocked over the head by a sneaky dude in a goat mask.

In 12.17, despite the Colt having the power to kill Dagon, it only works if the bullet actually hits her, and not Top Of His Class At Kendricks Douchebag.

Now post 12.19, the Winchesters still have the charred remnants of the Colt, like a relic of their family’s past. They’ve also got Samuel Colt’s journal, they know how to make the magic bullets that made the Colt more than an interesting novelty paperweight. It’s entirely possible that one of Sam’s missions in s13 will be to reconstruct the Colt, or experimenting on creating an entirely new version.

I’d enjoy this potential storyline, because it would be a way for Sam to explore the more technical and theoretical aspects of both magic AND hunting, and possibly helping him find a sort of balance between the two that would satisfy the part of him that found the research wing of the BMoL and their library of lore at Kendricks so fascinating.

Not to mention putting a potentially even more powerful and game-changing weapon into their hands by the end of the season. We already know the Colt was useless against Lucifer. Dean shot him in the head with it once… But what if Sam was able to figure out WHY it was ineffective against Lucifer? Just like AU Bobby’s angel blade bullet gun was ineffective against him? It offers an interesting potential for the narrative.

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [spn s13 speculatio](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation)n

 

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [ruby's knife](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ruby%27s-knife) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

[Jul 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163065859070/between-the-colt-disappearing-after-510-to-the)

19 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: Between The Colt disappearing after 5.10 to The Colt being melted to pieces in 12.19....which do you think would have been a better way to say goodbye to the legendary weapon?**

Aw heck. That’s a tricky one, because the Colt is just the sort of legendary weapon that best exists in a state of limbo, you know? How did it disappear after 5.10? Why? (I mean we learned in 12.12 that Crowley had picked it up and gifted it to Ramiel, and it had been locked in his safe all these years until Mary liberated it, but we didn’t know that at the time…).

It’s such a potential game changer in terms of the fact that it CAN kill practically anything, solving problems too quickly for the narrative. Lizbob’s tag for it is delightfully on point: Chekhov’s kill-everything gun. It’s almost TOO powerful for its own good.

Just like Cas when he’s at full angel power, when the Colt is in the Winchesters’ hands, the narrative must be purposefully written around the giant bubble of Instant Solution To Every Problem that surrounds it. That’s what happened in 12.18. Sure, Dean was over-confident because he had the Colt in his pocket, but he’d been expecting MONSTER and instead got knocked over the head by a sneaky dude in a goat mask.

In 12.17, despite the Colt having the power to kill Dagon, it only works if the bullet actually hits her, and not Top Of His Class At Kendricks Douchebag.

Now post 12.19, the Winchesters still have the charred remnants of the Colt, like a relic of their family’s past. They’ve also got Samuel Colt’s journal, they know how to make the magic bullets that made the Colt more than an interesting novelty paperweight. It’s entirely possible that one of Sam’s missions in s13 will be to reconstruct the Colt, or experimenting on creating an entirely new version.

I’d enjoy this potential storyline, because it would be a way for Sam to explore the more technical and theoretical aspects of both magic AND hunting, and possibly helping him find a sort of balance between the two that would satisfy the part of him that found the research wing of the BMoL and their library of lore at Kendricks so fascinating.

Not to mention putting a potentially even more powerful and game-changing weapon into their hands by the end of the season. We already know the Colt was useless against Lucifer. Dean shot him in the head with it once… But what if Sam was able to figure out WHY it was ineffective against Lucifer? Just like AU Bobby’s angel blade bullet gun was ineffective against him? It offers an interesting potential for the narrative.

  

 

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [kajuned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kajuned)

[Jul 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163082703200/your-idea-of-sam-researching-how-to-repair-the)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Your idea of Sam researching how to repair the colt reminded me that there never seemed to be any explanation as to what happened to Samuel's library. His trove held Colt's journal so it must have had other fascinating and useful information. It would be interesting to help learn more about their family history and augment the MoL archives too. Did I miss what Show said happened to it?**

The show never specifically stated what happened to it, no. We can sort of infer that Sam and Dean probably locked it all down for safekeeping, being the only ones left who even know about it. We’ve had other instances of Lore Stashes on the show over the years:

  * John’s storage unit first mentioned in 3.03, again in 5.01, and again in 9.11
  * Rufus’s cabin in Whitefish, where they spent a lot of time in s7 and s8 before they found the bunker
  * Bobby mentioned after his house burned down that he had copies of a lot of his books stashed elsewhere because he was paranoid :)
  * Jody brought a truckload of Bobby’s stuff to Sam in 7.12 to research how to save Dean from Chronos



We’re left to assume that these other caches of books and artifacts are either still out there in their secure locations, or to assume that Sam and Dean have shifted quantities of these books around over the years as needed. Since they settled into the bunker, it makes sense that they could’ve been bringing these sorts of things back there for safekeeping over the years, but it’s never explicitly said that they have.

It’s been four and a half years though, so it’s probably a safe assumption that they could’ve, and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover at some point that they had. A quick little hand-wavey explanation like, “Hey, remember that weekend we were clearing out Samuel’s old compound…” and they’d have it plausibly covered if they needed it for plot reasons. Otherwise, “Hey, we should go back to Samuel’s compound to fetch xyz lore books for this case…” and they suddenly have a reason to return there, which may further the plot just as easily.

I assume that’s why they’ve never confirmed nor denied that they’ve raided any of those particular lore libraries again, because as soon as they do make a textual statement one way or the other, it’s set in canon. This way those sources all still exist in a nebulous state of narrative potential if they ever feel the need to revisit them again.

As soon as someone says something in canon, it locks down and closes off potential narrative use.

So yeah, it could potentially unlock more of their family history, or become useful in other ways in the future. Not sure if it ever will, but it’s good to remember it’s a possibility.

[the bunker](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-bunker) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [because i don't specifically have a lore tag but heck on this show knowing the lore is better than weapons sometimes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-don%27t-specifically-have-a-lore-tag-but-heck-on-this-show-knowing-the-lore-is-better-than-weapons-sometimes)

 

[Oct 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166045989470/in-the-french-mistake-theres-no-magic-in-the)

7 notes

**Anonymous asked: In the French Mistake, there's no magic in the house, so why do you think Virgil using the demon blood bowl communicator actually worked? And I know he said he was desperate but why would an angel use a demon's method anyway? Wouldn't angels with traditional mindsets like him think anything to do with demons is verboten?**

Virgil explains it in that scene with poor meta!Misha in the alley. I pulled out Misha’s lines to make it easier to follow the gist of Virgil’s point:

**VIRGIL** How do you do it? Live in this grubby, shabby desert? Nothing greater than yourselves.Nothing but dirt when you die.No power, no magic.There’s no magic in your universe!Nothing but a bag of strings and pulleys.You should thank me for what I’m about to do.  
I need to make an important call. I pray to god that it even goes through. (Virgil stabs Misha) This is what I’ve been reduced to. (looking into his chalice of blood) Raphael.

And clearly there was no such thing as Angel Mojo magic in that AU, but apparently blood magic still works? Who even knows, but I bet if Sam and Dean had tried some sort of spell that only relied on blood magic it would’ve worked, too. But the spell they were trying to recreate was an Enochian or Angel spell, so it fizzled just like Virgil’s smitey mojo.

I mean, Virgil also had to resort to using human weapons, but he didn’t seem to have a problem with that. As the Weapons Keeper of Heaven, he said it was his job to know all about ALL sorts of weapons, even lowly human guns and stuff. He was an adaptable and skilled tactician and soldier, and he was more than prepared to use whatever tool or weapon he needed to get his job done, you know? Very efficient.

[spn 6.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.15) [virgil the weapons keeper of heaven](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/virgil-the-weapons-keeper-of-heaven) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Oct 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166819309160/confession-time-i-freaking-hate-the-way-they-shot)

20 notes

Confession time: I freaking hate the way they shot the entire Dean vs Abaddon fight in 9.21, but after making a post about Cas not really having a choice in taking on his “angel army” in this episode, I feel compelled (heh, compelled >.>) to talk about a mirror situation happening with Dean, the First Blade, and the Mark of Cain.

We see Dean resist and overcome Abaddon’s power when she pins him to the wall. The Mark glows so brightly we see it through Dean’s 900 layers of jackets and flannel as he consciously tries to tap into that power for the first time. It’s partly HIS need in that moment, but also partly the MARK’s need to sate itself now that it has the first blade (remember all that lock and key meta from s9? and again in s11? yeah, good).

Once Dean “gives in” to the Mark though, it takes him over. The high-pitched “song” of the Mark and Blade together ring through that entire scene. Sam is barely able to get Dean’s attention after he kills Abaddon.

**DEAN** : First time I touched that Blade…I knew. I knew that I wouldn’t be stopped. I knew I would take down Abaddon and anything else if I had to. And it wasn’t a hero thing. You know, it wasn’t… It was just calm. I knew. And I had to go it alone, Sammy.

Sam doesn’t understand yet that Dean wasn’t keeping him away from that fight because he was worried about what anyone else in the room might do to Sam. He KNEW that with the blade in his hand, he wouldn’t be in control of himself, and that Sam might become just another target for the power running through him. And we know this for a fact because of everything Dean said to Sam later in 10.02 and 10.03.

The Mark was already taking him over, and Dean’s choices were not really his own anymore. And the line between Dean and the power of the Mark was blurring so fast even he couldn’t keep track of it himself.

I don’t think it’s actually a comforting notion to Dean that Jack hasn’t really identified with his mysterious untapped powers yet, because the more he taps into those powers, the less in control the “human” part of Jack may become. Because that’s exactly Dean’s personal experience with that sort of power.

And at the very beginning of 9.22, Sam lays down his insight that’s remarkably terrifying in light of his own current belief in Jack’s humanity (and hello Dabb, nice to see your favorite themes at work here):

**SAM** : How many times have we been around this block? Magic that powerful comes at a price, and right now we don’t know what that price is.  
 **DEAN** : I’m fine. I’m fan-friggin’-tastic.  
 **SAM** : And I’m glad, honestly. I’m not saying we bury the thing. I’m saying we just save it for when we really need it. Crowley. Metatron. The big boss fights. You don’t have to have it with you all the time, right? I mean, just leave it. Please.

He thought it was as easy a matter as Dean leaving the First Blade behind, but that power is a part of Dean through the Mark. “Magic that powerful comes at a price,” and just like Dean couldn’t just put the blade down and be “regular old Dean” again, Jack also can’t just set aside his power, which expresses itself without his conscious will directing it.

[spn 9.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.21) [spn 9.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.22) [s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch) [mark of cain](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mark-of-cain) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [the special agony of brainwashing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-special-agony-of-brainwashing)

 

[Dec 29, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169086157105/dimples-of-discontent-have-people-already)

1,083 notes

  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/38eba0f2b56297e9e1c6c8baafc531b1/tumblr_omj210uKfD1rwv3cuo1_400.gif)   
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[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/58ea3c0da4b2ecca75919808c9feb331/tumblr_omj210uKfD1rwv3cuo6_400.gif)   


[dimples-of-discontent](https://dimples-of-discontent.tumblr.com/post/169084016171/have-people-already-written-about-the-symbolic):

> Have people already written about the symbolic destruction of the Colt? Like, it’s really the first and most important mythical object that has to do with Winchester Destiny…John’s obsession, the thing that can get revenge for Mary’s death, that might save Sam from Lucifer, etc. What it kills and doesn’t kill has always been a huge deal. Mary’s stealing it was a huge betrayal as it was when Cas stole it (though in keeping with recent themes, Sam feels Mary’s betrayal more keenly and Dean feels Cas’s more…possibly because, as Mittens says in the tags, Dean may not even know the full truth about 12x12). Dagon’s melting it down to “take [it] off the board” seems like a meta-commentary by the writers on how the story, and endgame, might progress. 
> 
> Tracking the Colt–points at which it is found, used, stolen, hidden–seems like it might give us a good window into what’s going on with Winchester Destiny in the overarching plot. The fact that it’s more important in S12 than it has been for a while, and that that concludes with its destruction, seems like a “tear up the script” moment” (like when Cas literally smashes the word of God). 
> 
> Experiment: if Colt = Winchester Destiny what do we see in S12?
> 
> Mary steals it from a Prince of Hell (who has it locked in a safe because he recognizes its value and may be biding his time to see if he ever needs it…and the safe is hidden by a familiar painting of Michael slaying Luficer with the lance that is later used to stab Cas). Cas is nearly a casualty of retrieving it but Mary considers it important enough that she does not crack and is willing to sacrifice Cas. She delivers it to the BMoL who she thinks are worth working with but who, in a confrontation, are revealed not to understand how to use it. Sam, the rightful owner, takes the Colt back to the Bunker and locks it in a safe, to be used when tactically necessary…where it doesn’t stay because Dean wants to keep it as close to him as possible (under his pillow). Cas knows this and “plays” Dean by finding him on a (relationship!) pretext then taking the Colt to use on Kelly and Dagon so that Dean doesn’t have to. Dean greets Cas at the door by saying “that’s mine” and Cas surrenders the Colt again. The next time we see the Colt is in the confrontation with Dagon where it gets burned and the Winchesters have to rely on Cas (and Jack) instead. This episode is called “The Future.”
> 
> Did we really burn up Winchester exceptionalism and isolationism? Not the first, perhaps, based on what Billie said and the fact that the show kind of depends on it. But maybe the second. Which I think is good. I’m going to have to think on this and maybe write more later.
> 
> Preserving the meta in [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg)‘s tags for context! [#spn 12.14](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [#spn 12.12](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [#since that’s when she stole it…](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/since-that%27s-when-she-stole-it...)[#supernatural weapons](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [#the colt](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)[#this scene right here was where my brain INSISTED we would need to see Dean’s reaction to this betrayal by mary](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/this-scene-right-here-was-where-my-brain-INSISTED-we-would-need-to-see-Dean%27s-reaction-to-this-betrayal-by-mary)[#because that betrayal was SO MUCH MORE to dean than it was to sam… because of what that lie nearly cost him](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/because-that-betrayal-was-SO-MUCH-MORE-to-dean-than-it-was-to-sam...-because-of-what-that-lie-nearly-cost-him)[#(and by that i specifically mean CAS)](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/%28and-by-that-i-specifically-mean-CAS%29)[#it became clear in 12.17 that sam must’ve told dean about the colt offscreen but i have no idea if the full truth about it ever came out](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/it-became-clear-in-12.17-that-sam-must%27ve-told-dean-about-the-colt-offscreen-but-i-have-no-idea-if-the-full-truth-about-it-ever-came-out)[#dean was happy enough to have the colt back in 12.18 that i can’t believe he did know how it was obtained…](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-was-happy-enough-to-have-the-colt-back-in-12.18-that-i-can%27t-believe-he-did-know-how-it-was-obtained...)[#and i feel like dean’s speech in mary’s mind in 12.22 carried the weight of his overarching feelings of betrayal](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-feel-like-dean%27s-speech-in-mary%27s-mind-in-12.22-carried-the-weight-of-his-overarching-feelings-of-betrayal)[#without focusing specifically on this one incident (because honestly that would’ve been Too Much…)](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/without-focusing-specifically-on-this-one-incident-%28because-honestly-that-would%27ve-been-Too-Much...%29)[#knowing the truth would’ve made that scene Too Much about Cas specifically when they were trying to keep it about Mary personally](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/knowing-the-truth-would%27ve-made-that-scene-Too-Much-about-Cas-specifically-when-they-were-trying-to-keep-it-about-Mary-personally)[#but with cas actually dying in 12.23 it feels like that side of the story had only been on pause](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/but-with-cas-actually-dying-in-12.23-it-feels-like-that-side-of-the-story-had-only-been-on-pause)[#because the first run of s13 put the focus of dean’s loss almost entirely on cas anyway](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/because-the-first-run-of-s13-put-the-focus-of-dean%27s-loss-almost-entirely-on-cas-anyway)[#during s12 this was a MAJOR sticking point for me because DAMMIT this hurt in like 9 different ways](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/during-s12-this-was-a-MAJOR-sticking-point-for-me-because-DAMMIT-this-hurt-in-like-9-different-ways)[#that sam kept this truth from dean and we only saw sam’s moment of horror about it](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/that-sam-kept-this-truth-from-dean-and-we-only-saw-sam%27s-moment-of-horror-about-it)[#and i still idly wonder if sam ever told him that full story or if it even matters anymore](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-still-idly-wonder-if-sam-ever-told-him-that-full-story-or-if-it-even-matters-anymore)[#now that the colt’s been reduced to a molten and charred lump…](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/now-that-the-colt%27s-been-reduced-to-a-molten-and-charred-lump...)
> 
> [oh gosh and golly this is a wonderful addition! :D](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-gosh-and-golly-this-is-a-wonderful-addition%21-%3AD) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17) [spn 12.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.22) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is)

 

[Feb 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170684054550/hi-mittens-so-ketch-made-it-seem-like-that-demon)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi Mittens. So, Ketch made it seem like that demon bomb would have had an affect on Luci and Anael (even saying the reason it didn't work was because they teleported away before it could hit them). But it had no affect on Cas, and he was there when it went off. Was Ketch just mistaken about the bomb being able to hurt angels? If so, why did Lucifer and Anael need to flee? And if not, why wasn't Cas affected?**

Nah, Ketch said he saw the bomb in the trunk when he escaped, and had kinda hoped it  _might_ do something to Luci if he was really as weak as the current gossip speculated (i.e. mostly human), but he honestly had no idea.

Like he told Sam, Dean, and Cas, he might not be typically trustworthy, and he will take any opportunity to screw you over in favor of his own interests, but heck… he was under the impression at that point that he really didn’t have the right tools to kill Lucifer on his own– and that was his assignment from Asmodeus.

But when it became clear that Luci was powerful enough to flatten all of TFW to the ground, he created a distraction with it. Luci had no idea what that was he was holding, and heck, after the Grace Extraction Egg Incident of 12.08, why take unnecessary risks? He fled.

I think that was legit the best outcome Ketch had been hoping for.

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Feb 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170684948535/this-episode-was-incredibly-consistent-i-was-so)

46 notes

**Anonymous asked: This episode was incredibly consistent! I was so happy. I do have a question tho... I was curious what you thought of the whole Archangel Blade thing. We already know that an archangel's blade can kill another archangel. At least, that's what we thought when Gabriel "died." So is it still consistent for Asmodeus to say the Archangel Blade is the only weapon that can kill an archangel? Did that include the Staff of Michael? I'm interested in your thoughts 😊**

Yeah, the Staff of Michael was destroyed, though. It no longer exists, at least not in a functional form.

And Ramiel had had it for a long time. I’m wondering if Asmodeus even knew about that one, or if they really didn’t chat all that much (or if that’s the sort of weapon Ramiel would’ve never told Asmodeus he’d had on his person in the first place?)

Since 5.19, we’d always assumed that just meant an Archangel’s Angel Blade, not that there was some Top Seekrit Special Archangel Blade for killing archangels… but one thing to note is that aside from using “Gabriel’s blade” against Gabriel in 5.19, and the angel blade he picked up from one of the random Jailer Demons in 13.13, we have NEVER seen Lucifer with a weapon like that.

And this new “Archangel Blade,” at least from the way it was introduced in 13.13, seems to be one-of-a-kind. Not like there was one for each Archangel, but just the one, period.

(because if they’d EACH had one, then why would Michael have needed to make that lance specifically to kill Lucifer, unless he was just a vindictive asshole… then again that lance deliberately killed angels slow and painful so, maybe he was?)

So yeah, basically, where has this magical blade been all our lives, and if Gabriel had known where it was all along, why didn’t Gabriel offer to use THAT one on Luci back in 5.19? I mean… It would’ve saved a whole hell of a lot of drama and suffering.

So… if the blade Lucifer stabbed Gabriel with in 5.19 wasn’t The Archangel Blade, what had Gabriel hoped to achieve against Lucifer with it? Weaken him enough that he’d be nothing but a shell of his former self, the way it appears Gabriel is now? With his grace never permitted to fully recharge (because yeah, I’m assuming that that’s how Asmodeus is powering himself up, with Archangel Grace Vampirism, since that was the theme of 13.13).

But… such is the nature of Bucklemming Canon Acrobatics… There’s a lot of dramatic handwaving required, and for all of it to even remotely make sense, you’ve got to allow yourself to not pay attention to the clumsy footwork and buy into the dramatic hand gestures… >.>

I really do feel like doing a whole writeup for this episode, but if the rest of my inbox is any indication, I’ve probably got questions about all the Bucklemmingery, so I’ll just keep answering for a while (and assume Lizbob’s long reaction post will cover pretty much everything I want to point out as well).

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics) [spn 5.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.19) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Feb 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170691242230/neven-ebrez)

13 notes

[neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/)

 

[ This episode was incredibly consistent! I was so…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170684948535/this-episode-was-incredibly-consistent-i-was-so)

> It could be later explained as being an archangel blade from another world as well and that would make sense. Could have been acquired by a previous Dream Walker’s wandering? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Hmm, yeah. I could buy that. Especially if Asmodeus has been spending some time trying to suss out the potential threat that AU Michael could present to him. Maybe he did stumble across a dreamwalker or two on his own.

Or else we could just temporarily handwave the way the weapon looks different by assuming it was likely just another Trickster-style disguise for the real thing. Gah, it’s all just so… there’s just too many handwaves going on here and it’s creating enough of a draft to blow away every canon fact I try to pin down… >.>

[neven-ebrez](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/neven-ebrez) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the archangel blade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-archangel-blade)

 

[Mar 3, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171500749355/do-you-think-its-at-all-weird-that-dean-was-able)

172 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think it's at all weird that Dean was able to defeat the sand guy, but Cas had to be saved? Like, I know Dean is not an average human, but he's still human. Meanwhile, Cas is a celestial being with thousands of years of of experience as a soldier. Cas is still a good fighter. But in general, the show seems to portray Cas' fighting style as not as competent as Dean's. I don't mean it as a serious problem or anything, I've just noticed it and it seems an odd choice for the show to make.**

Hi there! This is interesting, because I… didn’t see it as odd at all.

First off, from a purely physically analytical point of view, sure, Cas has (more like) billions of years experience as a soldier, but how many of them have happened while he was in a human body? Not even a vessel anymore, but ///his own human body///? Even up until he fell in 8.23 and became completely human the first time, he was largely unfamiliar with physically fighting AS A HUMAN BODY. It takes training and adaptability and instincts that he’s never really had a chance to develop.

Just like his whole “hunter in training” thing beginning way back in 8.08, continuing in 9.06, and really coming into its own only in s12…  human instincts and reflexes (just like hunting skills) aren’t something an angel would’ve had to hone in their “wavelength of celestial intent” form, you know? But Dean? He’s been training for fights ///as a human body/// as long as he can remember. He’s been fighting against things that were bigger, stronger, and more powerful than him since he was a child. He’s spent a lot of time honing his instincts, understanding how to press his advantage, and looking for weaknesses in opponents much stronger and more capable than he is. He’s learned to adapt his fighting style accordingly.

Cas might have a heck of a lot more experience time-wise, but most of that experience was based on the fact that he was typically the most powerful being in the room, you know? *boop boop smitey smite and done*

In that fight against Gog and Magog, they had The Wrong Intel. Cas was fighting Gog under the assumption that he was HUMAN (based on Donatello’s lie), and under the assumption that his angel blade would be effective against him.

Dean discovered the flaw in the plan within seconds, when his first attack was thwarted by Magog literally chopping his blade in half. Unlike Cas who has far less experience being suddenly overwhelmed by a more powerful opponent than he expected in single physical combat, Dean *RECALCULATED* and adjusted his strategy immediately. Instead of trying to kill Magog, Dean went for distract and disarm, and then was clever enough to use Magog’s own blade against him. Which Magog probably never saw coming  _either_. Because like Cas, Magog also expected to be the biggest, strongest, most invincible force in the ring.

Gog and Magog even joked about it, asking Dean and Cas where their armies were. Magog didn’t even think he’d need his sword to squash Dean like a bug, so when he dropped it, he didn’t worry about picking it up again. In his mind, he’d already won the fight… until whoopsie…  _Dean picking up his sword was unexpected_.

Gog didn’t even seem to notice that Magog had fallen. He was so focused on his fight with Cas, so focused on delivering the killing blow, he didn’t even notice Dean coming up behind him and killing him.

So that’s the utter practicality of why Dean won that fight when Cas didn’t… but it also played right into a lot of the major themes of s13. Marghe pointed it out spectacularly here:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171489854770/meredith-glynn-sings-the-song-of-my-people>

There’s more about this scene in that link there, but here’s a key bit:

> \- While we’re at the Gog and Magog scene - also, interestingly, Dean’s angel blade breaks, Cas loses his in the fight: angelicness is useless, the blades don’t even count as ‘touched by god’ -  **angels are hardly ‘divine’, the real divine is Dean**. We knew that, it’s so nice to have this little bits that fit with that theme. As I said, I loved how this episode featured bits of the good ol’ themes like Dean’s Humanity and Divinity duality… as I said, the song of my people. (Also: love how the scene emphasizes how Dean can be both super silly and the greatest fighter out there, childish and smart.) 

THEEEEEEMES!

[spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)

 

[Mar 4, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171520098240/thanks-for-your-reply-about-kevins-translations)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: Thanks for your reply about Kevin’s translations. I will let that go now too! :) One last Donatello question, how do you think he had the telekinetic power to choke Dean since he is basically human?**

Yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes the show misses something like that… and we’re expected to fill in the blanks on what happened like that, forget Kevin’s notes may have been useful so they must’ve disappeared at some point. Eh… either we obsess about it and drive ourselves bonkers yelling PLOT HOLES! or we make up elaborate headcanons to explain, or we just let go and assume we missed something.

And yeah, I think Donatello’s powers and spell abilities came directly from the knowledge on the demon tablet. And the proof is Metatron.

After Metatron became human, he still had a lot of magical powers. He lost his grace (i.e. Angel Powers), but what was left was something like a human soul (like Cas had after 8.23 when Metatron stole his grace). He also had knowledge of everything on all the tablets (Leviathan, Demon, Angel) because he WROTE them all. So in 10.18:

**METATRON** : Well…[Metatron touches books on the shelf with his finger and then gets blood on his finger from his wound. We then see that he’s drawn blood sigils on the books.] Cannot say I didn’t try. [He activates the sigils and walks toward Castiel in the next row. Castiel is coughing and collapses.] Poor Castiel. Swam so far just to drown in shallow waters. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?

(included here because it describes his spellwork) and

**METATRON** : So, uh…did you and samateur hour really think I wouldn’t have a back-up plan? [Metatron locates a book and opens it to reveal a tablet. Castiel is crawling down another aisle looking for a book.] Ah. Hello Demon Tablet. [Castiel grabs at “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes and knocks it off the shelf. The container with his Grace falls out of the book.] The places I’ll go with this. [METATRON limps to the row Castiel is in and sees Castiel has the container with his Grace.] And your Grace. Well, one out of two ain’t bad. [Metatron hurries away.]

(Included because Metatron’s goals– Cas’s grace and the Demon Tablet)

Metatron was complete human in that episode, and yet still used magical spells, powered by his knowledge of all the tablets. Much the same way he used the Angel Tablet like a giant power battery in his magical typewriter back in s9. The tablets do have inherent power that can be tapped into by anyone who can understand them.

Metaphorically, it was Cas smashing the Angel Tablet in 9.23 that allowed for Metatron’s downfall, the source of his powers shattered. But even smashed (so he couldn’t use it to power his words into reality via the typewriter he’d been manipulating reality with), he still KNOWS all the magic, all the spells, etc. that the tablet contained.

He was still able to perform a spell on Castiel (who was powered up as an angel, even by stolen grace) that almost killed him before he found his own grace again. Angel Tablet spells.

This is why I was so baffled by Sam and Dean’s insistence they could save Donatello. Like… no? He’s like Metatron but with zero conscience or remorse? All the power, but only motivated by whatever the Demon Tablet is whispering in his ear? Not even interest in Heaven or God or anything else, just… demonic power. Here’s that scene:

**DONATELLO** : I translated the tablet. All of it! I saw the power of God! It’s all up here. And you wanna take it from me.  
 **SAM** : No, we don’t. That’s not true. We – we just wanna help you.  
 **DONATELLO** : [laughs] No. You just brought me here to use me and get your precious spell back. You’re wasting your time. And if it’s a little magic you wanna be seein’… [whispers] Suffocetur.

“Suffocetur” was the spell he cast on Dean, which suffocated him.

Imagine if Donatello had escaped with the Demon Tablet. We could’ve had another Metatron– soulless and powered up by Hell– running loose in the world. That sounds… particularly awful.

CAS KNEW THIS. He knew what Human Metatron was capable of because of knowledge of the tablets. But Human Metatron still had a SOUL. Donatello DIDN’T. 

In addition, I’ve long held the theory that the Tablet have a powerful magical… compulsion… over the people associated with them. Remember Kevin Tran when he was first awakened to Prophethood in 7.21? How he had no idea why, but he knew he NEEDED to protect the Leviathan Tablet? Literally stole his mom’s car, blew off his entire life, and was magically drawn to the tablet?

Same with Cas when he cracked open the Angel Tablet in 8.17. Dean was SO UPSET that Cas didn’t “trust” him and flapped off… but he literally had no other choice. He was programmed to protect the Angel Tablet, and literally said as much. I wrote about this here about a year ago:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157589933320/im-sorry-if-you-or-someone-has-answered-this-but-i>

[The tablets aren’t just rocks with information scrawled on them](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DTablets&t=MmUwNzE1Y2I3MGJlNGYxMGM4ZjQ4MGEzY2IwYzA5NGQyZGYxZjI1ZCxEcWxFemlYdQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F171520098240%2Fthanks-for-your-reply-about-kevins-translations&m=1). They’re the Word of God and are imbued with an inherent power of their own.

And in 13.14, that power was the ONLY thing powering up Donatello since he’d essentially been an empty vessel for the Demon Tablet’s power with no soul to act as a buffer.

Still waiting for someone to give a satisfactory answer to: Well, then, what other choice did they have but to kill him, or to do what Cas ultimately did?

[spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [prophets of chuck](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/prophets-of-chuck) [donatello redfield](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/donatello-redfield) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [kevin tran](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kevin-tran)[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Mar 4, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171520826850/your-entire-argument-of-doing-what-needed-to-be)

66 notes

**Anonymous asked: Your entire argument of 'doing what needed to be done' can be destroyed with one question: 'what if that had been Dean? or Sam? or Cas?'. Because it seems to me that when they're infected or corrupted or beyond saving, then it's okay to go to stupid lengths to pulls them back from the brink. But when it's a random character, what, he can die? Just because it's inconviente to keep him alive? Honestly, the hypocrisy this fandom has fallen into is breath-taking.**

Okay… what do you suggest they could’ve done for him then?

When Sam was soulless, they KNEW WHERE HIS SOUL WAS. There was a chance they could get it back. Sam hadn’t been corrupted by pure evil, either.

When Dean had the Mark, he still had his soul in there fighting. There was still something in there TO save.

When Cas had the Purgatory souls corrupting him, they DID try to have Death kill him at first, but instead Death gave them a spell to RETURN the souls and hopefully save Cas.

When Sam was poisoned by demon blood and they threw him in the safe room to detox, ///Sam/// was still “in there” TO save.

When Dean was cursed to lose his memories, it was the result of A SPELL, which could potentially be UNDONE. Because Dean was still “in there” to save.

When Cas was stabbed with the Lance of Michael, they fought to save him because it was STILL CAS.

When Sam was possessed by Gadreel, they still fought to save him because SAM WAS STILL IN THERE.

WHEN CAS WAS POSSESSED BY LUCIFER, HE WAS STILL IN THERE!

I mean… Donatello HAS NO SOUL. THERE IS NO HOPE OF EVER GETTING THAT BACK. AMARA ///ATE IT///. HE’S NOT ACTUALLY “IN THERE.” So… what exactly are they saving here? On top of that, he’s essentially consumed and been entirely corrupted by the demon tablet, the literal Word of God detailing everything about demons and Hell. This is what was motivating him, what turned him into Gollum here, and what powered his spell that nearly suffocated Dean. How are they supposed to fix that? He’s like a human body possessed by everything God ever detailed about demons and Hell, and the knowledge to use that power. He’s like the physical embodiment of the demon tablet.

I LOVE how folks in this fandom will get all precious about non-issues, like “oh no, but what about ADAM?!” (who by everything ever explained about what happens to vessels when angels are blown to atoms, via Cas and Jimmy, that the soul doesn’t survive that sort of disintegration, like Adam wouldn’t have survived the Holy Fire Molitov), but conveniently overlook ACTUAL FACTS because they suit their particular personal bias.

Because this time, there’s no way to get around the fact that through their ignorance, THIS WAS SAM AND DEAN’S FAULT. What happened to Donatello… is their fault. They didn’t know they were hurting him, but that’s a heck of a lot of guilt to swallow.

I personally find it hypocritical to gloss over THAT fact. They did this. They can’t fix it. No one can fix it.

Please, actually engage with what the story is telling you, instead of what you think the story should be telling you.

Also, from the Doylist perspective, Donatello is a side character. Not a main character. His purpose is to serve the story and the main characters. They needed him to be fully corrupted beyond any hope of salvation, so that’s what happened to him.

It’s narratively a hell of a lot more than “inconvenient” to keep him alive.

You can’t save everyone. There’s a point at which the main characters begin to look idiotic for getting overly precious about lost causes. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s how stories work.

[spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [donatello redfield](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/donatello-redfield) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [i am honestly baffled by how precious people are suddenly feeling over such a minor character here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-am-honestly-baffled-by-how-precious-people-are-suddenly-feeling-over-such-a-minor-character-here) [especially one who they KNOW is beyond any sort of hope](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/especially-one-who-they-KNOW-is-beyond-any-sort-of-hope) [it's kind of a unique circumstance of a double whammy against donatello](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-kind-of-a-unique-circumstance-of-a-double-whammy-against-donatello)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Apr 7, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172690982410/is-it-possible-gabriel-is-alive-cuz-the-blade-an)

37 notes

**Anonymous asked: Is it possible Gabriel is alive cuz the blade an archangel carries isn't actually capable of killing other archangels? Like, maybe that was a myth the archangels believed? Cuz it sounds like the only thing available right now that can kill an archangel is that Archangel Blade that Ketch stole. So... maybe Lucifer's blade from Hammer of the Gods could never have killed Gabe at all?**

Could be. I mean, how many times have we seen Lucifer get stabbed with those things to no effect? Well, to some effect obviously, or Cas wouldn’t have turned his back on him in the War World, you know? And again Cas stabbed Luci in 13.12, and as weak as Lucifer was there it seemed to hurt him more, but still didn’t kill him.

We’ve also seen Luci get shot in the head with The Colt and shake it off way back in 5.10. And later in 12.12 we learned that Michael had even created a special lance capable of killing Lucifer (which Crowley broke to save Cas). The introduction of the Archangel Blade in 13.13 makes us question Kali’s assessment of the blade she lifted off Gabriel in 5.19. She’d referred to it as an “Archangel’s blade,” before identifying Gabriel.

But Gabriel told Dean it was a fake, made from a can of diet orange Slice.

So what if he knew that his blade couldn’t kill Lucifer back in 5.19?

What if he knew he had no chance against Luci, knew that the most he could do was distract him long enough for the Winchesters and Kali to escape?

But what if Lucifer didn’t know that he also couldn’t kill Gabriel in return?

So Gabriel puts on a show. Knows that Lucifer is going to stab him, and knows it’s going to leave him weakened, but puts on the full display, makes it look real right down to the wing prints, and then waits.

He’d already given Dean the “if you’re watching this, I’m dead” video with all the instructions about the Horsemen’s rings. But it also sort of proves that he’d had a bigger plan before he ever walked into that room. Probably before he’d ever walked into that motel in the first place.

Kinda makes me wonder more about how Asmodeus got his hands on that Archangel Blade than how Gabriel dodged death in 5.19.

But it seems that Gabriel, as the “messenger of god,” may have known some things about some things that the other archangels didn’t, you know? And one of those things may have been the fact that there was a special blade capable of killing the archangels that even they didn’t know about.

Because Gabriel didn’t want to kill Lucifer any more than Lucifer wanted to kill Michael, you know? They were still family. At the end of 5.08 when we first discovered Gabriel’s true identity, this was his reason for having left Heaven and gone on the run in the first place. 

I do think that Lucifer “killing” Gabriel in 5.19 is one of the things that led him to later plead with Michael in 5.22 to stop this killing. Gabriel wasn’t supposed to have died according to all the prophecies. The apocalypse was supposed to be a fight between Michael and Lucifer, and it was supposed to finally bring the end, the return of God, and all that.

But it wasn’t Lucifer who wanted to destroy the Earth all along, it was Michael.

Luci might not ever care one whit about humanity, but he DOES care about creation, the natural beauty of the Earth. And having see what Michael would’ve done to the Earth had he won in 5.22, Lucifer looks motivated to stop it from actually happening when he slips back through the rift in 13.07.

He recruits Castiel, because he knows Cas CARES enough to listen to him about the potential threat that Michael would bring from the AU.

And he doesn’t seem to know that Gabriel is alive.

He was also dismayed and perplexed by Asmodeus’s power boost before, so I look forward to someone squashing Amso like a lil bug now that his grace milk cow has been stolen…

(which sort of leaves him in the same sort of pickle that Ketch is in, since Ketch hasn’t been able to renew his resurrection spell either. They’d both boosted their respective unkillability through magical means, and they’ve both expended the last of their stash of power ups)

(But also, regarding the AU and how it’s shown pretty much everyone an interesting dark mirror to their own benefit– Sam and Dean got to see what a world they’d never been born to save looks like, Mary got to see what a world where she didn’t make that deal looks like, and now Lucifer got to see what a world where they actually fought the apocalypse battle looks like… it’s a bleak and terrible place.)

Back to Gabriel… he’s always been at the very least amused by humanity. I mean, he did hide out among humanity for millennia and got to know people probably better than any other angel aside from Cas. For much of that time he may have thought of humans as just interesting pets or playthings, but now that we’re out past where “destiny” had foretold the end of the world, maybe he’ll also finally be able to choose his own role going forward.

And instead of choosing that old destiny, he can finally REALLY choose “people.”

[spn 13.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.17) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [gabriel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/gabriel) [lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [spn 5.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.08)[spn 5.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.19) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [spn 13.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.12) [spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the archangel blade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-archangel-blade) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Apr 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172878893855/i-thought-deans-wound-looked-awfully-similar-to)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: I thought Dean's wound looked awfully similar to what Cas's in 12x12 too... did the MOL once had the Spear of Michael and get the inspiration of the poison from it? (Probably not since I assume the spear got lost after Michael got locked up, but I don't know... were we supposed to think they were similar and there was some kind of connection or was it just coincidental?)**

Yeah, theoretically Crowley (or someone else in Hell) had the spear just hanging around in storage. It was implied retroactively that the Lance of Michael may have been what Lucifer had been looking for in 11.15 when he ordered the demons to bring all the weapons from his crypts and was mightily disappointed at what hadn’t already been looted.

Yeah, he’d been looking for a Hand of God weapon (which he also found in one of Crowley’s personal vaults), but I don’t think he would’ve been disappointed if the Lance had been among the weapons brought to him back in 11.15.

But Crowley had long since turned it over to Ramiel at that point (theoretically shortly after 5.22, when Luci was locked back up in the cage). So Crowley and/or Hell in general had already known the location of the Lance (or had it in their possessions) way back then.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that it was unknown even to Crowley before that, or he would’ve given it to Sam and Dean in s5 instead of returning the Colt to them.

But yeah, the power of the Lance was in the sigils engraved on it and not on a physical poison. Which may have been simulated through some sort of magical poison by folks in the AU (and the BMoL in our world, according to Ketch). Because those wounds also kind of resembled the “decay” spell Rowena cast on Lucifer back in 12.03, too.

[spn 13.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.18) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Apr 17, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173046511985/its-kinda-funny-that-now-its-official-that-the)

42 notes

**Anonymous asked: It's kinda funny that now it's official that the only thing (so far) that can kill archangels is Cas hopped up on souls. Every other thing that supposedly can kill archangels has never been tested.**

This is actually interesting…

Let’s ponder the various things that might potentially kill archangels and their current status in canon:

- **The Colt** : Doesn’t kill Lucifer, so theoretically wouldn’t kill the other archangels either. Doesn’t really matter anyway, because Dagon rendered it useless unless they can repair it. At least they have the pieces.

- **The Lance of Michael** : Based on what we saw it do to Cas, it does AWFUL things to angels, and presumably also to archangels, since that’s specifically why we were told Michael made it in the first place. He wanted Luci to die slow and painful. And just O_O. Kinda says a lot about how just how petty and awful Michael is that he’d deliberately want Lucifer to suffer that badly for his perceived crimes… Again, doesn’t really matter anyway, because Crowley snapped it in half to save Cas, rendering it useless unless they can repair it. At least they have the pieces.

- **The First Blade** : We have no idea if it could kill an archangel, but Dean did slice up a few regular angels with it and it seemed rather owie to them. Doesn’t really matter anyway, because the blade’s power was tied to the Mark of Cain, which was the lock placed to hold back the Darkness and that’s been erased from the universe anyway, rendering the blade a novelty item, at best. It might make a neat paperweight at this point.

- **Godstiel** : He was good at blowing up archangels, but he only got to try that skill out on Raphael. We assume he’s been zapped to the empty (but we haven’t even heard mention of the AU’s Raphael, which I find interesting… but that’s for another time). Barring anyone trying to eat Purgatory again, since we all learned that was a genuinely terrible idea to begin with, this one seems to be impractical, at best.

- **Death’s scythe** : Death 1.0 claimed that eventually, someday, he’d even reap God, so we gotta assume Death’s scythe could do the job. *waves hi to Billie and her classy new scythe* Again, this one’s kinda impractical, because there’s only one, Billie’s got it, and I don’t think she’s gonna be loaning it out. Nor do I think she’s gonna get herself involved that directly in matters.

- **Rowena** : This is why I’m really excited for 13.19, because we might begin to learn more about her and what she really is. And what the full extent of her newly unchained power might be. Not sure she has the juice to off an archangel, but she sure had the juice to hurt Lucifer back in 12.03, and that was long before her original power was restored to her.

- **Chuck and/or Amara** : A case of “I brought you into this world, I can take you out” for Chuck, and a case of “mmmm I’m hungry and you look tasty” for Amara. I don’t doubt that either of them could do it with a stray thought, but they’re enjoying their vacation together or whatever and I don’t think they can really be fussed to even try.

- **an Archangel’s Blade** : Since we’ve been presented with a small, shiny, fancy-schmancy golden blade and told it’s something unique and different to the blades all the other angels carry, and we know the one Gabriel let Kali take in 5.19 was a fake made from a can of diet orange Slice (heh), and we know that whatever Luci stabbed with Gabriel’s blade in that episode wasn’t actually Gabriel, we’re left to assume that Gabriel’s disguise extended to rendering that small blade to look like a standard angel blade. Whatever, and however they choose to explain that in canon (or not), we now know what an archangel’s blade DOES look like, and that it’s only effective against an archangel when used by another archangel… that limits the number of people who can actually effectively use it anyway (much like the First Blade could only be used by someone who bore the Mark). We’ve got one of those floating around in canon now (and Gabriel presumably has it, I don’t think he would’ve just left it at the bunker, but maybe he did…). But as of right now, I think it’s one of possibly two weapons that can definitely kill an archangel, holding Rowena in reserve until we learn more. :)

eta:

- **Jack** : he can boop angels out of existence with a thought. Will it work on archangels? He seems to be more powerful that Luci at any rate, and thinks he has a chance against AU Michael when his power’s not warded into submission. He’s a definite possibility, but we hadn’t seen him on screen in so long I forgot, which is just *headdesk*

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [spn 13.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.18) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation)

 

[Aug 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176920263070/someone-wrote-in-a-destiel-group-im-in-that-dean)

53 notes

**Anonymous asked: Someone wrote in a destiel group I’m in that Dean still carries around Joes gun .. Was just wondering what your take/interpretation of this is, or even if you have one?**

[tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/176910066227/someone-wrote-in-a-destiel-group-im-in-that-dean):

> Hey! Tbh I’ve never really gone into thinking about this, all I know is that Dean and Sam have their preferred weapons, I don’t know for sure Dean’s is John’s old gun but I think I have heard that. It makes sense to have a memento and from what I understand when you have a gun you’re used to it’s best to stick to it hence they don’t usually switch guns but in terms of meta I don’t think it’s a huge deal as it’s not really a metaphor for much other than continuing the family business and the responsibility of hunting things and saving people which doesn’t need to be a metaphor, that’s fact and clear as day in the script.
> 
> Eg. the metaphor of his jacket being too big for him, shrouding him and making him look like a child wearing his dads clothes and trying to fill them made sense but this is an unnecessary metaphor imo, it’s cool and fine if so but personally I never really thought about it as it’s not necessary to seeing anything we don’t see in the core of the text anyway.
> 
> I think [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) probably does have some meta on her blog on this though, it could be worth searching for it there if you want an in depth analysis, it may be there :)

 

We don’t now the origin story of what I have come to think of as “Dean’s gun,” since the M1911-A1 is essentially his go-to weapon, but John did use it in a flashback to approximately 1988 (Dean was approximately 9 in the flashback scenes, but the exact date isn’t specified). It’s not known if John used the gun frequently, or only rarely, or when he may have passed it to Dean.

It could very well be the first gun John let him use at the shooting range when he was “6 or 7,” and mentioned hitting all the bullseyes, but it seems unlikely he’d give a small child a .45 for his first go at the range… Maybe he did, though.

We also don’t know if John had any sort of attachment to it the way Dean seems to, since it’s become his standard weapon of choice for general purposes. It could be that when John started training Dean for hunting, started taking him out on actual hunts, that he advised Dean to pick a go-to weapon from his arsenal, and that was just the one Dean liked the best and chose for himself. It might’ve just been some random gun to John, you know? But it’s special to Dean, just based on how frequently he uses it.

But half of this is just headcanon, since we don’t know any of these circumstances like we do with John’s leather jacket that Dean picks up from the abandoned motel room for himself in 1.01, and Dean already had the 1911 at that point (or so we’re led to believe, since he first uses it in 1.02, and John hadn’t left any weapons behind in the motel room for Dean to collect along with the jacket).

[spn 1.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.01) [spn 1.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.02) [spn 1.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.18) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Aug 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177385816870/dont-answer-if-you-dont-want-to-this-question)

11 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: (Don't answer if you don't want to) This question has been bothering me every time I've watched Season 6....what happened to Heaven's weapons? Balthazar hands Castiel the weapons and this makes Castiel the winner of the civil war, since he's put Raphael at a disadvantage. After that, we don't hear about them again. The angels never mention them. What's weird is that we hear about Hands of God in S11 that function much like the few Heavenly Weapons we saw in S6. So...what's your majestic opinion?**

HAAAA! OH my gosh, I know you asked this forever ago… like around the beginning of s13 forever ago, and I didn’t have the brainpower to go into it at the time, and it’s just been buried under current messages to the point I haven’t even seen it in ages until I decided to randomly hit “pgdn” in my inbox until I found something interesting to reply to… >.>

Inbox management is not my strong suit…

We never even learned what weapons Balthazar actually had, aside from:

  * the chunk of Lot’s Salt that reduced Raphael’s vessel to salt
  * the Staff of Moses that he sawed up into bits
  * The sword he attempted to use to kill Atropos in 6.17 (and we don’t know the specific powers or uses for that sword, aside from the fact it could kill a Fate)



We only have a very short list of other Heavenly Weapons throughout the rest of the series, and most of them eventually ended up in Crowley’s hands through one means or another. Many of  _those_  were technically “Hands of God” that we learned about in s11 (such as the chunk of the Arc of the Covenant in 11.14, the Rod of Aaron from 11.15, and the Horn of Joshua from 11.18. The rod and horn could’ve potentially been traded by Balthazar after he fled Heaven, but we honestly don’t know how they all connect back up.

It could be that Balthazar was bluffing about just how many weapons he’d made off with, since he did team up with Cas and helped with a lot of the shady “soul engineering” Cas was up to with Crowley behind his back.

Cas was also very interested in 6.06 to get his hands on the “Horn of Gabriel,” even if it turned out to be something entirely different in that episode, we know Metatron eventually used it in s9 to call angels back to Heaven (or into traps designed to capture or kill Cas). 

It could be the Archangel Blade had at one time been part of that stash, but again, we don’t know where Asmodeus found it, either… 

So my “majestic opinion” is that we likely saw most of what Balthazar had stolen in s6, and that it was likely just enough to create the illusion that he was sitting on a hoard of potential power, just enough to ensure his own safety should other angels find him and try to drag him back to Heaven.

I think Balthazar and Gabriel were much of the same mind as far as how willing they were to flim-flam themselves out of tight spots. :P

[we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [spn 6.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.03) [spn 6.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.06) [spn 6.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.17) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [spn 11.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.15) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Aug 31, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177608186525/hey-mittens-ive-been-a-bit-bugged-about-all-the)

31 notes

**[chill-legilimens](https://chill-legilimens.tumblr.com/) asked: Hey Mittens!! I've been a bit bugged about all the weapons ex machina that keep showing up last minute-- the archangel ones especially feel like they take away from the stakes of earlier seasons (Michael's lance, the Harry Potter egg, the archangel blade, etc.). 1/2**

[chill-legilimens](https://chill-legilimens.tumblr.com/post/177606644322/hey-mittens-ive-been-a-bit-bugged-about-all-the):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177600656020/hey-mittens-ive-been-a-bit-bugged-about-all-the):
>
>> 2/2 Are we meant to assume most of these weapons were around back then, but heaven had them so they wouldn’t have been able to use them anyway? I guess it makes sense with the weapons not leaving heaven till s6… Was hoping you might have some more info/thoughts on this. Thanks!!!  
>   
> 
>> 
>> HI HI! CONGRATS! YOU HAVE HIT UPON ONE OF MY FAVORITE SUBJECTS. SUPERNATURAL WEAPONS! WHEEEEE! :D
>> 
>> *hands out seat belt buckles*
>> 
>> Okay. We know Balthazar grabbed an armload of weapons at the beginning of s6 and skedaddled with them. But really the only weapons we absolutely know he had were the Staff of Moses, the chunk of Lot’s Salt, and the sword he attempted to kill Atropos with in 6.17. 
>> 
>> (side note to say that I had to look up her name because I was trying to remember what the Three Fates were called and was only coming up with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and just… no) :P
>> 
>> I wrote a thing about Balthazar and his weapons stash recently, which will save a lot of time explaining stuff again here:
>> 
>> <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177385816870/dont-answer-if-you-dont-want-to-this-question>
>> 
>> I also mentioned the “Hands of God” weapons in that post, and Crowley’s stashes of weapons.
>> 
>> Before I go into Crowley’s stashes, I want to at least mention Lucifer’s Crypts, which we first learned about in 8.17, and which Luci again referenced in 11.14, when he seemed to be looking for a particular lance or spear among the few weapons his minions managed to salvage from his crypts. With the power of hindsight, I wondered if he hadn’t been looking for the Lance of Michael…
>> 
>> We later learned in 12.12 that Crowley had presented the lance to Ramiel as a gift on behalf of Hell. So where did Hell manage to find such an impressive gift? Possibly in one of Lucifer’s raided crypts?
>> 
>> We also know that Crowley presented The Colt to Ramiel as a personal gift, so the Lance hadn’t been Crowley’s personal possession before then, at least not the way the Colt was (since we assume he picked it up from the woods after the events of 5.10).
>> 
>> We also learned that Ramiel had a large collection of magical weapons, so it’s possible that there could be all sorts of other potentially interesting things to discover there. Could the archangel blade have been in his stash, and it took Asmodeus that long to find it? We just don’t know.
>> 
>> (thanks again, Bucklemming, for introducing a magical all-powerful weapon out of the blue for plot convenience without justifying its sudden appearance narratively! so professional! >.>)
>> 
>> But to address the specific weapons in your query individually:
>> 
>> The archangel blade doesn’t work unless it’s used by an archangel. So that wouldn’t have really done any good to Sam, Dean, and Cas during s5. Sure, it could’ve been a game changer, but no more so than what actually did happen, you know? Michael and Lucifer meeting on the field of battle, one killing the other. Archangel blade or no archangel blade, the story still plays out the same way. It changes nothing.
>> 
>> The Lance of Michael, however, could potentially have worked for anyone. I mean, Ramiel used it to stab Cas and it worked just fine, and Sam used it to stab Ramiel, and it worked just fine. Again, back during the apocalypse, we have to assume it was tucked away in Hell somewhere, or locked in one of Lucifer’s crypts. Ramiel himself said that Michael had made it specifically to kill Lucifer, because he’d wanted Lucifer to suffer. One has to assume he felt that way around the time Chuck locked Luci in the Cage, but over the intervening millennia, he seemed to have softened on that a bit, and by 5.22 even expressed regret at having to kill Lucifer only because it was foretold or whatever. It was more about fulfilling his destiny than about anger on his part by then. So the lance remained locked away, unused and unnecessary.
>> 
>> So again, it wouldn’t have changed anything, other than if Sam and Dean had known of its existence, they probably would’ve been hunting for it instead of hunting for the Colt, which they didn’t know wouldn’t be able to kill Lucifer anyway. So, no I don’t think it really lessens the stakes of anything that came before we learned of its existence. It’s not the kind of weapon that whoever has possession of it would flaunt in public, you know? Sort of like having the Elder Wand. Sure its owner is invincible, but that just makes it too dangerous to be allowed to exist, and someone will always be scheming to take it away from its current owner.
>> 
>> The Banishing Egg (or [hyperbolic pulse generator](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2FHyperbolic_Pulse_Generator&t=YzUxOGU4ZmY0NmRiMTNlM2I1MjEzZDQzNTdkNGZkZTU2MzdjZGMyYyxpUVNnTk13Tw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F177608186525%2Fhey-mittens-ive-been-a-bit-bugged-about-all-the&m=1)… I always forget it had a stupid name) was apparently a BMoL design. It wasn’t designed to entrap demons or angels, but to forcibly eject them from their human vessels. Sort of like a half-exorcism that also worked on angels. It was only Rowena’s spell that then (theoretically) would’ve sent Lucifer back to the Cage in 12.08. If she hadn’t worked that spell, Lucifer would’ve been banished from his vessel, but he could’ve just zapped off to find a different vessel. It would’ve been inconvenient, but ultimately wouldn’t have solved any of their problems.
>> 
>> It would’ve come in handy back in, say 11.18 when they could’ve used it to force Lucifer out of Cas. I mean, they still would’ve had Lucifer on the loose, but at least he wouldn’t have been in Cas anymore… so I don’t think that particular weapon would’ve changed the early seasons much at all, other than potentially having more turnover for the casting department finding replacement vessels for a lot of angels every week… :P
>> 
>> As for the timeline on when Heaven may or may not have had any of these weapons stashed away… they mostly haven’t been associated with Heaven. The Lance was apparently (theoretically) in one of Luci’s crypts or abandoned by Michael and claimed by Hell at some point in the vague and potentially distant past. The Egg Thingy was never even a Heaven Weapon to begin with, but crafted by the BMoL. And the archangel blade was apparently hidden away by possibly Gabriel before he was captured by Loki and company shortly after the events of 5.19, or possibly already lost to one of the various weapons hoarders we’ve met during the course of the series (Crowley, Ramiel, Barthamus and Luther Shrike from 12.08, the Men of Letters in general… I mean they had the Inner Key of Oz and the Spear of Destiny just lying around the bunker, who knows what all they’ve got stashed away around the world, you know?).
>> 
>> Who even knows what’s still potentially out there, lying in a storeroom somewhere, or another of Lucifer’s abandoned crypts, or in museums around the world, or in sunken vessels at the bottom of the ocean, or buried on an asteroid, for that matter. We just don’t know. The point is, things we don’t know about yet can’t affect the past. It doesn’t take away from events that have already occurred if new information comes to light later on down the line.
>> 
>> Would it have been handy to have had the Lance of Michael back in 4.22 when Lucifer first popped out of Hell? Possibly. It could’ve been handy in 1973 when Mary was first confronted by Azazel, too. Or in 1978 when Michael was tinkering with the past, or in 1983 when Azazel showed up to drip blood in Sam’s mouth, or when they were hunting for Lilith in s3 and s4. I mean, sure…  But  _they didn’t even know it existed_  at that point, so it changes nothing. Even Mary didn’t beliee that the Colt was real until she held it in her hands, you know? It was a mythical thing until that point for her. Just like the Lance would’ve been if someone had mentioned it to Sam and Dean in s3.
>> 
>> It’s like Cas searching for God in s5, hoping that God himself could be their ultimate weapon in stopping the apocalypse. And I mean, theoretically, he could have been. But Free Will trumps all, and it had to be the choices of the people involved rather than God waving a hand to stop the mechanics of the universe, you know? Even knowing God existed doesn’t change the events of s4 and s5. Even knowing he was literally  _right there in the middle of it and still did nothing_.
>> 
>> So no, I don’t think it detracts in any way from the events of earlier seasons to discover these new weapons later on down the line. :)
> 
> [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) Thanks so much!! I totally wasn’t thinking of Crowley and Lucifer’s crypts. And I do feel better about the earlier seasons now– it’s easy to forget how limited their knowledge was back then when we’ve had so much world-building and lore in the ten years since. And the players on the board have changed so much I guess you can’t really compare their knowledge/resources in the early seasons to where they’re at post Carver.
> 
> I guess the only >.< moving forward will be if no one mentions the Plot Egg with the Michael!Dean situation lol, since we know for sure they’re aware it exists and can talk to Ketch about it. But, Buckleming.
> 
> Anyway, thanks a bunch for your answer!!

Hey, sure, any time :)

And heck, even if the show doesn’t use the Magical Extracting Egg on Dinkle, at least *I* used it in a fic, so I figure I personally got my money’s worth on that one… :P

I’d guess in canon their only hesitation for using the Egg of Destiny would be just ~setting Michael loose~ in the world, you know? They’d have no idea where he’d be going from there, or what innocent person he’d convince to say yes to him and therefore have  _their_  life ruined too, you know? That was their objection to extracting Lucifer from Cas back in s11 too… that he’d just bounce into a new victim, the way he had earlier in the season (and most of those victims didn’t live very long…)

So yeah, I don’t know how they’d handle any of that, or if they’ll come up with a completely different solution to the problem. But it’s interesting that they did bring back Ketch this season (who was the one who loaned them the Antipossession Egg in the first place and might still have one handy), and Rowena (who performed the spell that should’ve locked Luci in the cage if it hadn’t been diverted by Crowley and could theoretically do the same to Michael now), and Naomi (who knows how to do the head-pin-torture-halo-thingy and could also theoretically poke into Dean’s brain enough to control and/or exorcise Michael). So they do have options, but who knows which one will actually happen…

(or if something entirely new and unexpected happens… we just don’t know.gif)

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [spn 6.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.03) [spn 6.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.17) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08)[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [spn 5.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.19) [chill legilimens](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/chill-legilimens)

 

[Sep 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178436855890/so-was-it-ever-decided-what-happened-to-kevin)

50 notes

**Anonymous asked: So, was it ever decided what happened to Kevin Tran's angel tablet translation? I know nothing was explicity said in canon about it. But is there an accepted theory of where it might have gone? Could it have gotten stolen at some point or something? Idk. Just some headcanon that justifies why Donatello had to be used to get the spell**

Hmm. See, we know they had complete Kevin translations of not only the Angel Tablet, but also the Leviathan Tablet. I think in reality, like Doylist reason for it happening, was oopsie, they kinda forgot about that. Or else they needed Donatello to go mad to raise that exact moral quandary, and it would only work if they didn’t already potentially have access to ONLY an untranslated copy of the Demon Tablet and conveniently handwave the info on the others.

From a Watsonian perspective, which I find far more enjoyable for headcanon purposes, there’s potentially several explanations:

1\. After they were used, when they were no longer theoretically needed, the Winchesters decided the universe was safer without that knowledge just ~floating around~ and destroyed the translations. I mean, theoretically the Leviathan Tablet also had the spell to OPEN Purgatory on it, and NOBODY wanted a repeat of that.

2\. After they were used, the fact they were the Word of God meant they had served their purpose, like a “this message will self-destruct” feature built in. And they self-destructed.

3\. While Chuck was hanging out in the bunker back in s11, he decided they were too much information to have just out there in the wild and disappeared them himself, along with (evidently) the knowledge that they SHOULD have had those translations.

4\. The tablets themselves are magical and contain far more than just the visible characters printed on them, and only give the proper information at the time it’s needed. I mean, I always headcanoned that Kevin was able to translate the Leviathan Tablet so quickly and easily, and formed such a strong, instant attachment to it, because he was literally awakened as a prophet by the Leviathan Tablet. He struggled for MONTHS to read the demon tablet, and it made him ill (nosebleeds, potentially a small stroke) because he wasn’t “supposed to” be reading/translating it, and he essentially had to FORCE the information out of it. Because at the time the Leviathan Tablet was cracked open, it was “needed” in a cosmic sense, you know? But the demon tablet info was basically an act of hubris, and everything from Kevin’s struggles translating it to the illness Sam suffered as he went through the trials should’ve served as giant NO GO BACK YOU ARE MAKING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE warning signs, similar to Cas’s struggles to crack Purgatory and release the Leviathan in the first place.  So there’s a bit of that element in how I tend to think of the tablets, too. The information they contain is just that powerful and potentially cataclysmic, I don’t think it all just reveals itself. They’re like the internet. You can do a google search and find something specific relevant to your current needs, but you can’t just… see the whole internet and jot it down on a few sheets of paper, you know?

Because for stone tablets with a few dozen rows of sigils, they certainly have gleaned an AWFUL lot of into from those things over the years. But still funnily enough, despite the fact that Sam (at the VERY least), and probably Cas, but even Dean probably peeked in at it most likely at least skimmed through the translated word of God, you know? I think something like “How To Crack Open A Rift To An Alternate Universe” spell would’ve stuck out in someone’s memory if it had been in the translated stuff they had from before.

So either the tablets only reveal a portion of the infinite knowledge they potentially contain to the “translator” enough to serve the purpose they were intended by God at that particular moment, and the only reason Kevin found the info about slamming the gates of Hell was because Crowley kinda started it… forcing Kevin to translate the tablet for HIM, in another of his misguided quests for power. So the Demon Tablet gave Kevin the little bit of leverage he needed to escape (the demon bombs) and the little shove of motivation he needed to keep himself, you know, alive. I’m currently rewatching early s8 on the tnt loop and recall this interesting exchange from this morning, in 8.01:

KEVIN leads the way into the room. Symbols are painted on the floor.  
 **DEAN** : Who taught you all this?  
 **KEVIN** : I guess… God.  
 **SAM** : God taught you how to trap demons?  
 **KEVIN** : Technically, yeah.

Meaning he learned it from the Demon Tablet. Kevin needed different information than he needed when he was trying to FORCE the tablet to reveal the Hell Trials, you know? God wanted him to be able to protect himself, so the tablet taught him how.

So, with the AU Portal Spell… it’s like they needed to use the Cosmic Google, and only one person on the planet is capable of running the hardware at any given time, so… Donatello.

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [i still headcanon those tablets are at least moderately sentient things](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-still-headcanon-those-tablets-are-at-least-moderately-sentient-things)[especially with how the angel tablet controlled cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/especially-with-how-the-angel-tablet-controlled-cas) [they have inherent power at least](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they-have-inherent-power-at-least) [and are far more than bits of rock with actual words etched on them](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-are-far-more-than-bits-of-rock-with-actual-words-etched-on-them)

 

[Oct 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178966612305/sam-king-of-hell-im-just-so-alive-right-now)

73 notes

**[wigglebox](http://wigglebox.tumblr.com/) asked: Sam. King of Hell. I’m just so alive right now??? I’m hecken tired so I can’t string together why I love it so much but that announcement he made just REEKED of power and I’m like**

[wigglebox](http://wigglebox.tumblr.com/post/178966200937/sam-king-of-hell-im-just-so-alive-right-now):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178966079595/sam-king-of-hell-im-just-so-alive-right-now):
>
>> I KNOW RIGHT?!
>> 
>> They grow up so fast :’)
>> 
>> It feels like just yesterday he was thwarting the Grand Plan and throwing off the mantle Boy King of Hell, and now he’s just…
>> 
>> The Man Blocking The Road To the Throne Of Hell. :’)
>> 
>> Holding Ruby’s knife, which in this context – since Kip even COMMENTED on the knife– an additional reminder of how far he’s come and just :’)
>> 
>> I’ve used that lil weepy face a lot tonight :P
> 
> I actually can’t remember the last time I’ve seen that knife with so much attention in an episode. But seriously that stance that declaration the demons obeying him in that moment the EVERYTHING.

The last time the knife was really an object of attention was 13.08, when Sam used it as the “key” to get past the gates into Luther Shrike’s sanctuary… because he’d weaseled his way out of Hell, and was only safe from the LAST pretender to Crowley’s legacy on his own land.

Sam said it was a family heirloom, left to him by his “Aunt Ruby.” >.>

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [spn 13.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.08) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons)

 

[Oct 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179437027570/oh-nooo-dean-what-was-the-reason-to-do-it-to)

47 notes

**Anonymous asked: Oh nooo, Dean... What was the reason to do it to Kaia? They all...em... don’t like Michael, they could just help each other? D: And all that time with Michael :(((**

Yeah… I think this is definitely a To Be Continued situation.

I mean, Kaia really calmly forced Dean to take a step back and really look at himself, you know? She might not know much about him, but what she DOES know about him isn’t flattering at all, you know? When we first saw that scene in 13.09 where he threatened Kaia we were AGHAST. Like, what would drive Dean to behave that way?

At that time, it was fear, mixed with the guilt that he hadn’t tried harder to find Mary. Learning that she’d been TORTURED for possibly MONTHS, while he was just humming along again now that he got Cas back (his pretty damn big win). He’d abandoned Mary for dead, and suddenly it was URGENT that he find her. And in that moment, Kaia had been the ONLY one who even could. So yeah, not terribly flattering… 

And then when she sees Dean’s face again? It’s Michael, who’s now been sending his monsters to torment her and try to steal her weapon, because it can hurt him.

And now? Dean acts no different from Michael, no different from the monsters he sends after her to steal her weapon at any cost.

Dean LISTENED TO HER. He proved he wasn’t the same as Michael, he really examined his actions, and admitted he didn’t need to run straight at the problem full speed, and without saying the words, decided to find a better way.

But seriously… Kaia and her Yeet Fork will definitely be relevant again in the future.

And I think Dean might just be a little scared of it himself… not because it can hurt HIM, but because Michael does want it so badly. Right now, he’s put his trust in Kaia being able to hold onto it.

Hopefully she’s too busy to bother with her original mission to find and kill Claire, whatever that had been about… I really REALLY hope we find out. :)

[spn 14.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.03) [spn s14 spoiolers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoiolers) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [darth kaia](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/darth-kaia) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the yeet fork](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-yeet-fork) [name bestowed by angstphilosopy and i can't unsee it so... :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/name-bestowed-by-angstphilosopy-and-i-can%27t-unsee-it-so...-%3AP)

 

[Oct 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179437393965/so-im-rewatching-and-ive-got-a-question-what-do)

39 notes

**[7faerielights](https://7faerielights.tumblr.com/) asked: So I’m rewatching and I’ve got a question. What do you think is actually up with Kaia’s spear? Michael came after Kaia specifically for it. Is it a hand of god, maybe? Lance of Longinus or something like it?**

I have no idea. We know very little about The Bad Place or how Kaia came to be there, you know? She seemed to be the only humanoid resident there, like that whole universe was just a fragment of OG Kaia’s consciousness, her nightmare world, you know?

*pauses to shout for a few minutes about the injustice of not getting Wayward Sisters, because this was sure to be a MAJOR PLOTLINE there*

But an interdimensional weapon that can harm archangels? Interesting and convenient that it showed up in THIS universe while an archangel from YET ANOTHER universe is wreaking havoc here… :P

I’m wondering if there isn’t some equivalent weapon somewhere on Earth… Lance of Michael? Spear of Destiny? Because I’m wondering if it won’t take a multi-pronged approach (pun definitely intended) to actually defeat Michael.

Yeet Fork + mystery spear + archangel blade = mikebab?

[spn 14.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.03) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [darth kaia](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/darth-kaia) [the bad place](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-bad-place) [spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [7faerielights](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/7faerielights)

 

[Dec 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181069416940/bluestar86-postmodernmulticoloredcloak)

207 notes

[bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/181060899528/postmodernmulticoloredcloak):

> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/181058492122/elizabethrobertajones-mittensmorgul):
>
>> [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/181056561148/mittensmorgul-wigglebox-olivecave-replied-to):
>>
>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181056364170/wigglebox-olivecave-replied-to-your-photoset):
>>>
>>>> [wigglebox](http://wigglebox.tumblr.com/post/181048124952/olivecave-replied-to-your-photoset):
>>>>
>>>>> [olivecave](http://olivecave.tumblr.com/) replied to your [photoset](http://wigglebox.tumblr.com/post/181047177382/drsilverfish-postmodernmulticoloredcloak): _[drsilverfish: postmodernmulticoloredcloak: …](http://wigglebox.tumblr.com/post/181047177382/drsilverfish-postmodernmulticoloredcloak)_
>>>>>
>>>>>> I love bi Dean as much as the next guy but…. it’s literally a bone…. people know bones have two balls on either end right??? It’s like Cain’s blade, that was made out of a jaw bone, this is made of bone as well… it’s not a dick reference ;-; any knife is technically shaped like a dick so you could say this about any character ever.
>>>>> 
>>>>> bruh let us make dick jokes okay it’s season 14 we earned it 
>>>> 
>>>> You know they literally could’ve made this spear out of anything, and yet they chose to make it look this way? They could’ve made it out of a smooth stick, or cut the knobby end off the bone so it didn’t look quite so much /like that/ but nooo, someone in the props department said OKAY IMMA MAKE A GIANT DICK SPEAR and they just… did that.
>>>> 
>>>> And[ the First Blade](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2FFile%3AFirstbladeguybee.jpg&t=NTdjODc2MmVjZmY4YjU4OTRlODZmMTI5Y2ZhMWIyMDJjN2QzODg5ZSxxWEpNOE0zNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F181069416940%2Fbluestar86-postmodernmulticoloredcloak&m=1) didn’t have big knobby balls on it. Yes it was made of bone, but it had  _teeth_  instead of  _testicles_. So therein lies the difference.
>>>> 
>>>> I suppose it could be argued the crossbar part of the hilt here is a bit bollocky, but dude…
>>>> 
>>>> I mean, last time they had a big pointy thing made out of a bone they left the condyles on (because yes the knobs on the end of a bone are called condyles) was that time they made [a pointy thing to bone Dick with](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D156%26pid%3D167856%23top_display_media&t=YzBjMmFiNjJkNmUyMDYyN2U2MTY2MDVhZTU5NDI5ZjAwMjQyZTE5ZixxWEpNOE0zNg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F181069416940%2Fbluestar86-postmodernmulticoloredcloak&m=1). Tell me that wasn’t intentional back in Season Dick Joke?
>>>> 
>>>> Well, there was Dean’s Purgatory Ax… which he took off another dude he killed… 
>>>> 
>>>> not overcompensating at all, I’m sure, strapping a huge honking stone blade onto his bone…
>>>> 
>>>> But these aren’t just randomly existing weapons. They are created DELIBERATELY by the props department to look this way. They look this way FOR A REASON.
>>> 
>>> Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a bone to get Dick is just a phallus 
>> 
>> I would say the teeth on the First Blade are supposed to represent a vagina dentata but they had not planned Amara yet when they designed the First Blade for the first time, so I’m pretty sure it has no relevance about the Darkness :p
>> 
>> But Dick? They’d been making dick jokes for months.
>> 
>> And season 14? The season who’s already given us this?
>> 
>> [Originally posted by postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://tmblr.co/ZIDr0l2e9jRAn)
>> 
>> [Originally posted by postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://tmblr.co/ZIDr0l2dpkwPV)
>> 
>> It’s not much of a stretch to imagine they  _didn’t_  make a dick accidentally.
>> 
>> The mini-plotarc of the first half of the season involves Dean  _accidentally_  looking for a dick-shaped weapon to stick it into Michael? Mmm?
> 
> My dudes Supernatural is THE SHOW to go to you if you like dick jokes. EVERYTHING on this show is a dick joke. Honestly. If you are gonna get uptight about some fans pointing out the multiple dick jokes and phallic symbols on this show - you are watching the wrong show. :P
> 
> Heck, we even have a gif for that.
> 
> [(x)](http://mooseleys.tumblr.com/post/139949554238)

If there were any more dicks, it would be Shakespeare, okay?

(and the First Blade showed up as a weapon to defeat Abaddon, and then Cain, before the whole MoC arc was redirected at Amara)

 

[supernatural weapons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-weapons) [the yeet fork](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-yeet-fork) [the first blade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-first-blade) [dean's purgatory ax](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean%27s-purgatory-ax) [they boned dick](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they-boned-dick)

 

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157358315275/im-still-screaming-about-this-episode-question)

17 notes

**[spacecomrades](http://spacecomrades.tumblr.com/) asked: I'm still screaming about this episode. Question though cause I honestly can't remember, when was the last time we saw the colt?**

In chronological time, it was when Dean shot Lucifer in the head with it in 5.10. Luci flung him back into a tree and knocked him loopy, and he dropped it in the woods. I believe that’s what Crowley’s referring to when Ramiel asks where he found it, and Crowley replies “It’s amazing what some people leave lying around,” or something to that effect.

But in show time, Dean used it in 6.18 (but also in the year 1861) to kill the Phoenix. 

12.12 had a LOT of parallels to both 6.18 and 6.19 (i.e. Mommy Dearest, which was the last time we had a Sam Smith as Mary moment, as well, before the very end of 11.23…).

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 5.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.10) [spn 6.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.19) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [spacecomrades](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spacecomrades)

 

[Feb 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157458020495/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-okay-but-the)

43 notes

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/157450675527/okay-but-the-question-is-where-do-the-british-men):

> Okay but the question is: where do the British Men of Letters get their intel? Who told them about the Colt’s whereabouts and (unless Mr Ketch was lying about that) failed to mention that the demon was a Prince of Hell?
> 
> How many people even know that Ramiel had the Colt - Crowley, the demon with him… possibly the other two Princes of Hell…?

I wrote something the other day speculating on this. My best guess was the other demon with Crowley when he gave the Colt to Ramiel… the one who was so ready to accept the throne of Hell if Crowley turned it down…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157403650990/obviously-theres-been-a-ton-of-parallels-between>

She was likely sick of standing outside Ramiel’s house for the last 6 years… and hearing rumors of a bunch of uppity Men of Letters scouring the country for magic trinkets… she could kill two birds with one stone, leaking just enough info to bring in some of these half-competent, drastically under-informed ninnies to break Crowley’s deal with Ramiel, positioning herself to take over Hell without any apparent blood on her own hands.

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)

 

Feb 18, 2017

57 notes

**[nicelimabean](https://nicelimabean.tumblr.com/) asked: Obviously there's been a ton of parallels between Ramiel and Cain but I just thought of something. Do we know that Ramiel was actually doing anything wrong, or was that just part of Mary's cover story? If we look at it from his POV they were actual rude AF breaking in and trying to kill him for no reason and stealing things that had been gifted to him! What if Mary had just told her boys that Ramiel had the Colt and they could have gone and talked to him politely?**

It was Mary’s cover story, or at least that’s what I gathered. Somehow the MoL discovered the location of the Colt. And they wanted it.

They collect “toys” like this. Like the egg, like the brass knuckles…

Why did they want it RIGHT NOW? Well, that’s the question, really.

What are their plans here, really? Their info is ALL super-sketchy, you know? HOW DID THEY KNOW THE COLT WAS THERE, DOWN TO THE SCHEMATICS OF THE HOUSE IT WAS STORED IN AND THE PICTURE HIDING THE SAFE IT WAS LOCKED IN, AND YET NOT KNOW IT WAS RAMIEL PRINCE OF HELL THAT OWNED IT?!

They have a terrifyingly cavalier attitude toward the people they’ve contracted to work for them. Meaning, hunters. The soldiers on the ground. The people they give orders to and expect to carry out their deeds. It’s rather sickening, you know?

Ramiel’s ONE condition to Crowley was that he (and his siblings) simply be left alone. No one bothers them, everything will stay hunky-dory.

That’s was Crowley’s motivation for interfering here. Because of the deal he’d made with Ramiel, Crowley has assumed PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the fact that Ramiel had been “disturbed” by anyone.

Which is really interesting to me, because Crowley’s demons only interfered with our little gang AFTER they’d engaged with Ramiel. Technically they could’ve prevented Mary’s little raiding party from even going in in the first place if they’d been watching the house like they were supposed to.

And I think that comes down to the demon who’d been there with Crowley when the original deal was made.

Remember, when Ramiel offered the throne of Hell to Crowley, he took a minute to feel a bit stunned, and then the other demon– the one who made that little speech about being the demon who killed Sam Winchester?– SHE WAS EAGERLY PREPARED TO ACCEPT THE THRONE OF HELL, and was rather put out that Crowley overrode her and took it himself. She did not seem pleased by this: (note, this is from the rough draft of the transcript. I haven’t put stage directions in yet, but suffice it to say, Demon Lady Looked Pissed)

> CROWLEY: I mean, one dares to dream, but what about the others? You’re not the only Prince.  
> RAMIEL: Azazel was a fanatic, a true believer in Lucifer’s plan. But the rest of us? Well, the truth is, we stopped caring a long time ago. Asmodeus has his hobbies. Dagon has her toys. We’re happy where we are. So the crown is yours if you want it. Otherwise… [Ramiel looks to Crowley’s associate]  
> DEMON: Oh, hell ye–  
> CROWLEY: I’ll take it. I mean, I graciously accept.  
> RAMIEL: Swell, but there is one thing.  
> CROWLEY: Nothing comes without a price.  
> RAMIEL: Well, this should be easy enough. Leave us alone. And make sure everyone else does the same. If anyone– anything– bothers a Prince of Hell, that’s gonna be on your head, Crowley. And you don’t wanna know what happens when you piss us off.  
> CROWLEY: I humbly accept your terms.

So, aside from being pissed at Crowley, she knows the full terms of the deal. She knows it’s Crowley’s head on the chopping block if the terms of the deal are violated– i.e. if ANYONE or ANYTHING bothers a Prince of Hell.

Well, methinks Demon Lady (sorry she’s not actually named, which only ADDS to the feeling that she would feel Wronged by Crowley’s deal) was actually COUNTING on someone breaking the deal… 

She’s been stuck on the most boring guard duty of all time, when she’d been half a word away from sitting on the Throne of Hell herself.

Why not let someone bother Ramiel? It would piss him off enough to go after Crowley, and then she’d be perfectly positioned to take the Throne.

SHE WAITED UNTIL AFTER THEY’D FOUGHT RAMIEL TO MAKE A MOVE.

She didn’t interfere when Mary and Wally were staking the place out that morning. She didn’t interfere when FIVE PEOPLE walked up to the house and began setting out a trap. She knew perfectly well who these people were, too.

My bet? SHE WAS THE ONE WHO TIPPED THE BMOL OFF TO THE LOCATION OF THE COLT. She’s the only other one who knew where it was, after all…

She WANTED all of this to happen. She USED the BMoL to set off this chain of events that would eventually lead to her taking over Hell. She wasn’t expecting to get stabbed in the back by Dean Winchester…

She relied on the MoL’s greed for shiny toys. Assumed Ramiel would handle the intruders, and then rush off to murder Crowley. Her and her associate showing up to finish off the Winchesters would put her on the spot to accept the Throne once Crowley was dead.

Mary was only given the limited information that Lady Demon wanted the MoL to have. The text messages she exchanges with “Hobbits” are quite revealing: (transcribed exactly as they appeared on screen):

**“What the hell did you do? The demon had yellow eyes!”** She receives a reply a minute later, **“Wasn’t us. Bad intel. You Can’t stay there. He will find you.”**

I think that “bad intel” could’ve only come from Lady Demon. To her, the Colt was simply bait in her own play for power.

From Mary’s pov, she only knew that a demon was in possession of the Colt. Telling Sam and Dean that would only lead to them “asking the wrong questions,” wondering HOW she could possibly know that…

They’d start digging, rather than storm the place with bad intel… They’d at least probably call Crowley in for intel… and then they’d know the entire truth about the Colt, about Ramiel, and Crowley would’ve known WHO betrayed him (Lady Demon, the only other person on the planet who knows Ramiel even had the Colt), and they never would’ve put themselves into that position in the first place.

From MARY’S POV, she assumed if she told them about the Colt, they’d ask questions that would lead them to guessing or proving that she was actually working from the BMoL, and she knows first-hand that THEY WOULD DISAPPROVE:

From the Mary POV scene at Raul’s Diner:

> WALLY: You meet them fancy Men of Letters?  
> SAM: British Men of Letters?  
> DEAN: Yeah, they got gear, but, uh, you know they tried to kill my brother.  
> SAM: All right. Internet’s up. We’re in business.  
> MARY: Everything’s gonna be fine.

THIS CONSTITUTES FOUR OF THE SEVEN LINES OF DIALOGUE FROM MARY’S POV IN THE DINER. This was the information that was important to her POV. Fear of the source of her intel being discovered, Wally bringing up the MoL and Dean’s response.

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [ramiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ramiel) [men of letters vs hunters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/men-of-letters-vs-hunters) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester)[meangreenlimabean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/meangreenlimabean)

 

[Mar 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157959511285/sam-saying-he-got-the-bullet-recipe-from-a-buddy)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: Sam saying he got the bullet recipe 'from a buddy' also served to distance him from his own history with the gun and downplay its significance to him personally imo. 'I know how to use this gun and a buddy told me how to make the bullets' makes it seem like his experience with the gun is more 'general elite hunter business' instead of something intrinsically tied to his family history and some of his own darkest days. And he knows now that it's another piece of info the bmol are missing**

Exactly. He’s trying to keep that distance, because he’s dubious of the MoL… you could see the moment he regretfully wrote down that recipe, because he knew he was the only one (along with Mary) who stood a chance actually getting to the armory and fighting the vampires along the way.

It seemed to me like he REALLY didn’t want to reveal that info.

He also didn’t mention any of his personal connection to that gun. Because Samuel Colt himself once entrusted it to Sam. I mean, if ANYONE has a personal connection to the gun, it’s Sam and Dean.

He’s keeping A LOT of secrets from the MoL, and one has to ask oneself, if he’s actually willing to work with them,  _why is he keeping so much from them?_  Why is he doling out info on an as-needed basis? And only when it doesn’t cut too close to his personal history?

Indeed…

[spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [men of letters vs hunters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/men-of-letters-vs-hunters) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)

 

[Mar 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158781447840/120-vampires-aka-the-evils-of-humanity)

23 notes

1.20… VAMPIRES.

aka, the evils of humanity exposed. Lies, deception, hiding the truth.

**SAM** : Wait, you came all the way out here for this Elkins guy?  
 **JOHN** : Yeah. He was… he was a good man. He taught me a hell of a lot about hunting.  
 **SAM** : Well you never mentioned him to us.  
 **JOHN** : We had a… we had kind of a falling out. I hadn’t seen him in years. (gesturing to the envelope) I should look at that. (He opens it) ‘If you’re reading this, I’m already dead’… that son of a bitch.  
 **DEAN** : What is it?  
 **JOHN** : He had it the whole time.  
 **SAM** : Dad, what?  
 **JOHN** : When you searched the place, did you, did you see a gun? An antique, a Colt revolver, did you see it?  
 **DEAN** : Ah, there was, there was an old case but it was empty.  
 **JOHN** : They have it.

John had never mentioned Elkins to Sam or Dean, but we know (thanks 6.18) that his primary connection to Elkins would’ve been about the Colt. Sort of makes a person wonder if their “falling out” hadn’t been about the Colt all along. Elkins not wanting to give it to John, John wanting it to kill the demon…

Gosh that gun has a looooong and horrifying history with the Winchester family. It’s an excellent reminder for just how awful Mary’s ignorance of all this history, of what this gun has meant to her family, and the fact she just ~handed it over~ to the people who’d tortured Sam…

_They say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a hunter, a man like us only on horseback. Story goes he made thirteen bullets, and this hunter used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. And somehow Daniel got his hands on it._

(I mean… Sam’s the guy on horseback here… and Dean’s the last hunter to shoot it at this point… and he dropped the gun when Cas pulled him back from 1861, and that’s probably when Colt left the gun with the Elkins family in Sunrise…)

**JOHN** : They were what Daniel Elkins killed best: Vampires.  
 **DEAN** : Vampires? I thought there was no such thing.  
 **SAM** : You never even mentioned them, Dad.  
 **JOHN** : I thought they were extinct. I thought Elkins and – and others had wiped them out. I was wrong.

_Most vampire lore is crap. A cross won’t repel them, sunlight won’t kill them, and neither will a stake to the heart. But the bloodlust, that part’s true. They need fresh human blood to survive. They were once people, so you won’t know it’s a vampire until it’s too late._

And here we have the very first bit of vampire lore in the entire series. Something that had always been kept hidden from Sam and Dean by John. This is also the first real hunt we’ve seen John participate in fully, and where we get to see his dictatorial leadership style, the whole “only give them the bare minimum information and expect them to just do as they’re told without question.”

Oh, and this like always makes me so damn angry:

JOHN: Hey Dean why don’t you touch up your car before you get rust? I wouldn’t have given you the damn thing if I thought you were going to ruin it.

He wasn’t lashing out at Dean about the state Baby was in. He was just lashing out in general. It was about obedience, and the fact that Sam and Dean currently weren’t being very obedient. Yes, it brought out the worst in him, this fear and urge to protect his children that manifested the hidden drill sergeant in him:

**JOHN** : I don’t think I ever told you this but … the day you were born, you know what I did?  
 **SAM** : No.  
 **JOHN** : I put a hundred bucks into a savings account for you. I did the same thing for your brother. It was a college fund. And every month I’d put in another hundred dollars, until… Anyway my point is, Sam, this is never the life that I wanted for you.  
 **SAM** : Then why’d you get so mad when I left?  
 **JOHN** : You gotta understand something. After your mother passed all I saw was evil, everywhere. And all I cared about was keeping you boys alive. I wanted you…prepared. Ready. Except somewhere along the line I … uh … I stopped being your father and I … I became your, your drill sergeant. So when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was, that you were gonna be alone. Vulnerable. Sammy, it just… it never occurred to me what you wanted. I just couldn’t accept the fact that you and me – We’re just different.  
 **JOHN** : What?  
 **SAM** : We’re not different. Not anymore. With what happened to Mom and Jess… (laughs) Well we probably have a lot more in common than just about anyone.

I mean, it’s not an excuse by any stretch of the imagination, but it does give a little bit of context. But we finally get Sam and Dean standing up to John  _together_.

**SAM** : You’re leaving again ,aren’t you. You still wanna go after the demon alone. You know, I don’t get you. You can’t treat us like this.  
 **JOHN** : Like what?  
 **SAM** : Like children.  
 **JOHN** : You are my children. I’m trying to keep you safe.  
 **DEAN** : Dad, all due respect but, uh, that’s a bunch of crap.  
 **JOHN** : Excuse me?  
 **DEAN** : You know what Sammy and I have been hunting. Hell you sent us on a few hunting trips yourself. You can’t be that worried about keeping us safe.  
 **JOHN** : It’s not the same thing, Dean.  
 **DEAN** : Then what is it? Why do you want us out of the big fight?  
 **JOHN** : This demon? It’s a bad son of a bitch. I can’t make the same moves if I’m worried about keeping you alive.  
 **DEAN** : You mean you can’t be as reckless.  
 **JOHN** : Look… I don’t expect to make it out of this fight in one piece. Your mother’s death … it almost killed me. I can’t watch my children die too. I won’t.  
 **DEAN** : What happens if you die? Dad, what happens if you die, and we coulda done something about it? You know I been thinking. I …think maybe Sammy’s right about this one. We should do this together.  
 **DEAN** : We’re stronger as a family, Dad. We just are. You know it.  
 **JOHN** : We’re running out of time. You do your job and you get out of the area. That’s an order.

And in that respect, this is sort of the first iteration of Sam and Dean “tearing up the script.” They defined that direct order, but if they hadn’t, John would’ve been dead, the Colt would’ve been lost, and the whole plan would’ve failed.

Dean’s “assignment” had been to save the people the vampires had in a cage. But he and Sam came back.

And here’s a VERY TELLING AND RELEVANT EXCHANGE BETWEEN LUTHER THE VAMPIRE AND JOHN WINCHESTER:

**LUTHER** : You people. Why can’t you leave us alone. We have as much right to live as you do.  
 **JOHN** : I don’t think so.

Just like the BMoL, this idea that the vampires (and other monsters) don’t have as much right to live as anyone else. >.>

And then Dean stands up to John when their obedience is called into question again.

**JOHN** : You ignored a direct order back there.

**DEAN** : Yeah but we saved your ass.

**JOHN** : It scares the hell out of me. You two are all I’ve got. But I guess we are stronger as a family. So…we go after this damn thing. Together.

[spn 1.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.20) [monsterrrrrrrrsss](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/monsterrrrrrrrsss) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the ghost of john winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-ghost-of-john-winchester) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)

 

[Mar 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158783374840/121-aka-things-both-come-together-and-fall)

43 notes

1.21. AKA Things both come together and fall apart…

We finally meet John’s friend Pastor Jim only for him to die in the cold open…

Truths come out, and have consequences.

Sam and Dean finally stand up to John. We know he’s known about Sam’s psychic abilities since 1.09, yet when Sam has a vision in front of John and the boys just accept it as part of their lives (because hey it’s been happening for a while now), this goes down:

**JOHN** : (Flatly) A vision.  
 **SAM** : (Slowly, painfully) Yes. I saw the demon burning a woman on the ceiling.  
 **JOHN** : And you think this is going to happen to this woman you met because…  
 **SAM** : Because these things happen exactly the way I see them  
 **DEAN** : It started out as nightmares. Then it started happening while he was awake.  
 **SAM** : (Wincing) Yeah. It’s like the closer I get to anything to do with the demon the stronger the visions get.  
 **JOHN** : All right. When were you going to tell me about this?  
 **DEAN** : We didn’t know what it meant.  
 **JOHN** : All right, something like this starts happening to your brother, you pick up the phone and you call me.  
 **DEAN** : Call you? Are you kidding me? Dad I called you from Lawrence all right? Sam called you when I was dying. I mean, getting you on the phone? I got a better chance of winning the lottery.  
 **JOHN** : You’re right. Although I’m not too crazy about this new tone of yours, you’re right. I’m sorry.

Sam and Dean DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THESE VISIONS MEANT. They didn’t know they were connected to the demon who killed Mary and Jess… BECAUSE JOHN NEVER GAVE THEM REASON TO THINK THAT. He kept all the information about it so close to his vest because he thought he was protecting them, but all along they had information that maybe could’ve helped stop the thing sooner. But having been kept in the dark, having been LIED TO all these years, even the lies of omission about what John was after, stymied all their efforts in the end.

It’s only coming entirely clean with all the details that  allowed them to see the entire picture and effectively begin hunting the demon.

John runs off to play decoy, bringing a fake Colt to his meeting with Meg, while Sam and Dean stay in Salvation :

**JOHN** : I just…I just need to buy a few hours, that’s all.  
 **SAM** : You mean for Dean and me. You want us to stay here, and kill this demon by ourselves?  
 **JOHN** : No Sam. I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school, I want…. I want Dean to have a home. I want Mary alive. It’s just….I just want this to be over.

*screams for eternity*

This is the ridiculous impossible wish that Sam tries to push onto Dean (go have a home) at the end of s5. And now it’s the lure Mary’s dangled in front of Sam (you can go back to school!) in 12.14.

And it all revolved around The Colt.

**DEAN** : This thing goes south just…get the hell out. Don’t get yourself killed all right, you’re no good to us dead.  
 **JOHN** : Same goes for you. (There is a long pause) All right listen to me. They made the bullets special for this colt. There’s only four of them left. Without them this gun is useless. You make every shot count.  
 **SAM** : Yes sir.  
 **JOHN** : Been waiting a long time for this fight. Now it’s here I’m not gonna be in it. It’s up to you boys now. It’s your fight, you finish this. You finish what I started. Understand?  
 **JOHN hands DEAN the colt.**

JOHN HANDS DEAN THE COLT.

Yet somehow it’s Sam who ends up with the gun when they break into the house to save the baby and kill the demon. Dean’s relegated to holding off the homeowner while Sam runs upstairs to the nursery.

I normally remove the extraneous stage directions for the purposes of these meta posts, but in this instance, the stage directions say it all:

SAM hesitates, frozen and staring.  
 **MONICA** : Rosie!  
SAM raises the Colt and pulls the trigger. The demon disappears into smoke. 

SAM HESITATES. It’s only Monica calling out to her baby that spurs him to action, but by then it’s already too late. Sam was FINALLY face to face with the thing that killed his mother and Jess, and he froze.

(funny how it’s Dean in the end who manages to kill the thing… Dean being the one of the three of them who was willing to lay the vengeance aside…)

**SAM** : Dean let me go, it’s still in there.  
 **DEAN** : No. It’s burning to the ground, it’s suicide.  
 **SAM** : (Yelling) I don’t care.  
 **DEAN** : I do!

and then we hit the very painful core of 12 years of Winchester Family Dynamics:

**SAM** : If you had just let me go in there, **I coulda ended all this**.  
 **DEAN** : Sam, the only thing you would have ended was your life.  
 **SAM** : You don’t know that.  
 **DEAN** : So what, you’re just willing to sacrifice yourself, is that it?  
 **SAM** : Yeah. Yeah you’re damn right I am.  
 **DEAN** : Well that’s not going to happen, not as long as I’m around.  
 **SAM** : What the hell are you talking about Dean,  **we’ve been searching for this demon our whole lives. It’s the only thing we’ve ever cared about.**  
 **DEAN** : Sam I wanna waste it. I do. Okay? But  **it’s not worth dying over.**  
 **SAM** : What?  
 **DEAN** : I mean it.  **If hunting this demon means getting yourself killed then I hope we never find the damn thing**.  
 **SAM** : That thing killed Jess. That thing killed Mom.  
 **DEAN** : You said yourself once, that  **no matter what we do, they’re gone, and they’re never coming back.**  
 **SAM** : Don’t you say that, not you! Not after all this don’t you say that.  
 **DEAN** : Sam look.  **The three of us…that’s all we have…and it’s all I have.** Sometimes I feel like I’m barely holding it together man…and without you or Dad….

*resists urge to just bold that entire conversation*

Sam sees getting his revenge as the end of the line. To him it means getting out of hunting, but he’s reached a point where  _nothing else matters to him at all_. 

This really puts into context what Dean said to Mary in 12.02:

**Dean** : You know when you died, it changed Dad. I mean he was hell-bent on finding out what happened. The hunter life, it just took him over. I guess I was the same. But, Sammy– Sammy, he was different. He wanted out. He went to school, he went to Stanford.  
 **Mary** : Sam had a chance to get out, and he came back?  
 **Dean** : When Dad disappeared, Sam and I looked around and something became very clear.  **The only thing we had in this world – the only thing, aside from this car – was each other.**

Because without each other, the only thing they would’ve had was that revenge, and that’s just no fucking way to live.

At that time, it wasn’t a depressing thing to think that all they had was each other. It’s what SAVED THEIR LIVES. It’s what gave them something to live for when they were at a place where it seemed like the only solution was to die. I mean… yeah, it’s still not a happy solution, but it was better than the alternative.

Live for the living, instead of dying for the dead.

And Mary just didn’t have the context to understand it. It’s like she’s picked up the other side of their s1 revenge quest, picking up right where she’d left off in 1983. She’s taken on John and Sam’s mission to destroy the Great Evil Thing as a sort of revenge for her loss of her babies, and for everything they’ve been through since her death. She’s willing to put her own life on the line over and over again. Someone needs to give her that little speech Dean gave Sam in 1.21.

No matter what you do, those little boys are gone and they’re never coming back. But the men they grew into have done incredible things, and they haven’t asked to have their lost childhoods and innocence avenged. They came to terms with their lives a long, long time ago.

It’s okay to let go and start living for the living.

[spn 1.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.21) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the ghost of john winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-ghost-of-john-winchester) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [men of letters vs hunters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/men-of-letters-vs-hunters) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [i swear that weapon is like some sort of horrible winchester family omen of badness happening](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-swear-that-weapon-is-like-some-sort-of-horrible-winchester-family-omen-of-badness-happening)

 

[Mar 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158892734830/122-the-colts-only-got-three-bullets-left-they)

47 notes

1.22. The Colt’s only got three bullets left. They have no idea how to make more.

(the Colt’s as much a mystery to them at this point as it is to the BMoL and Mary in s12)

Sam wants to stay and fight (WITH ONLY THREE WHOLE BULLETS THAT WORK ON DEMONS!). Because VENGEANCE! Dad would’ve wanted them to stay and kill the thing! Even if he’s already dead as well because of it.

Dean wants to take a step back and work on a reasonable plan because if the demons got John, then there’s no way for Sam and Dean to survive facing them without A Plan. Running to the fight with nothing but their emotions dialed up to berserker mode would just result in ALL of them dead.

*resists urge to just copy/paste all the damn dialogue here, because it’s entirely pertinent to s12*

BOBBY. When their dad goes missing, they run to Bobby for help. He’s the closest thing they have to a father. He teaches them all the basic demon lore (and really, why didn’t they get these lessons sooner? John’s been tracking demons for years at this point, and he didn’t even teach Sam and Dean the very basics? Seems like a grave oversight, but John never intended to let the demons get close to his boys in the first place).

Dean as lie detector: He absolutely knows that Meg is lying about killing John.

Bobby warns Dean that exorcising the demon from Meg will probably kill her, because of the damage her body’s sustained while being possessed. Dean’s thinking is that if they can’t save the real Meg, at least they can put her out of her misery, save her from being possessed…

(interesting in light of s9, but there you go. desperate times and all that…)

And the Colt’s been tied to Sunrise again– via the apartment building where the demons were holding John and the town in Wyoming where Dean once killed a phoenix with it (6.18), and then in 12.12 Cas ordered the Sunrise Special and nearly died, while we learn that entire mission was secretly about Mary stealing the Colt.

Sam and Dean argue over whether or not to bring the Colt on a rescue mission for John:

**Sam** : We can’t, Dean. We’ve only got three bullets left. We can’t just use them on any demon, we’ve got to use them on the demon.  
 **Dean** : No, we have to save Dad, Sam, okay? We’re gonna need all the help we can get.  
 **Sam** : Dean,  **you know how pissed Dad would be if we used all the bullets?** Dean, he wouldn’t want us to bring the gun.  
 **Dean** : I don’t care, Sam. I don’t care what Dad wants, okay? And since when do you care what Dad wants?  
 **Sam** : We want to kill this demon. You used to want that, too. Hell, I mean, you’re the one who came and got me at school! (Dean scoffs)  **You’re the one who dragged me back into this, Dean. I’m just trying to finish it!**  
 **Dean** : Well, you and Dad are a lot more alike than I thought, you know that?  **You both can’t wait to sacrifice yourself for this thing. But you know what? I’m gonna be the one to bury you. You’re selfish, you know that? You don’t care about anything but revenge**.  
 **Sam** : That’s not true, Dean. (Dean scoffs) I want Dad back. But they are expecting us to bring this gun. They get the gun, they will kill us all. That Colt is our only leverage and you know it, Dean. We can not bring that gun. We can’t.

(Oh gosh in retrospect this is such an obvious trap)

Dean (of course) brought the Colt with him anyway, and ended up killing a demon that nearly killed Sam. He’s freaked out that he’s NOT more freaked out that he’d killed the person the demon was possessing too.

John and Sam have been on this revenge quest, but for Dean it’s never been about just avenging the dead. He cares more about protecting his LIVING family members than in getting revenge for the dead.

John and Sam may be willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of revenge, but Dean’s rather unsettled that he’s willing to sacrifice perfect strangers in the name of holding on to what little family he has left. (and it’s the attitude that leads him to sell his soul for Sam in 2.22, so… it’s definitely something unsettling).

(see all the meta ever written about Dean knowing that John’s possessed because he was PROUD of Dean for “wasting a bullet” when the real John would’ve been furious with him for it… even though that bullet was “wasted” saving Sam)

And Sam is torn between who to believe, Dean or “John.”

And of course Dean hesitates actually pulling the trigger. Even  _knowing_  John’s possessed, he also knows that killing the demon would’ve also killed John… and killing John? That was probably too much to ask of Dean. He just had this morality crisis about the terrifying things he’s willing to do to  _protect_  Sam and John, it’s unreasonable to think he’d be able to  _kill_  John…

Instead, he pleads to John, trapped inside the demon, as it tortures him.

It’s like a weird version of the crypt scene. John fought down Azazel enough to let Sam break free and grab the Colt.

John begs Sam to shoot him so it can kill the demon, while Dean lies wounded across the room begging Sam NOT to shoot him… and the demon escapes. Just like Dean predicted of the “real John,” he’s disappointed.

**John** : I’m surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn’t you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first – before me, before everything.  
Sam looks in the rear view mirror at Dean.  
 **Sam** : No, sir. Not before everything. Look, we’ve still got the Colt. We still have the one bullet left. We just have to start over, alright? I mean, we already found the demon…..

and smashy smashy.

Sam’s been won over to Dean’s “there are things more important than revenge” mindset at last.

Oddly, it’s pretty much Mary’s mindset right now, too. Confronted with a yellow-eyed demon, stealing the Colt, keeping secrets (or flat out lying), putting her mission ahead of everything else… at least until after her shake-up in 12.12. Still, she doesn’t even begin to come clean to Sam and Dean there yet.

In 12.01, their first (sunrise!) conversation on that park bench:

**Mary** : How did he die?  
 **Dean** : He gave himself up. For me.  
 **Mary** : That sounds like John.

She smiled fondly, as if what John had done (without all the guilt and context of just how much those events screwed with Dean’s head…) was somehow a positive thing… like it hadn’t been one of the major events of his life that had scarred Dean heavily. That fully in context, it wasn’t a noble and gallant sacrifice of himself for Dean, it was just one more bargaining chip added to the giant pot of Winchesters throwing their lives away for each other.

It took Dean YEARS to get over that, and here’s Mary cavalierly implying that of course if John died hunting, it would be to save his boys…

Kinda puts a scary spin on just how cavalier Mary’s been with her own restored life, and the choices she’s making on behalf of her grown sons. Just like that choice John made all those years ago. He thought he’d been doing something “for the greater good” too…

And all of this is centered around the Colt, and sunrises, and lies, and family, and revenge.

In s12 Dean is so far past doing  _anything_  for simple revenge, but Sam’s struggling with it just like he did in s1. Only now it’s Mary instead of John, tempting him with a life beyond hunting instead of a valiant death in service to that revenge.

I swear I just want to sit everyone down and declare Honesty Hour and talk about all this crap. But no, the truth is gonna come out in horrifyingly painful ways, because we’re watching Supernatural.

[spn 1.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.22) [spn s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [spn 12.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.01) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)[lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics)

 

[Apr 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159158117720/304-demon-in-a-priest-costume-im-sure-the-show)

16 notes

3.04: Demon in a priest costume. I’m sure the show has never revisited the subject of evil masquerading as emissaries of Heaven… >.>

This is also the episode where Ruby the demon teaches Bobby how to make new bullets for the Colt. And it all revolves around deception.

These two demons move into this small town, one possesses the priest and another possesses a bartender. They work in concert, whispering into the townspeople’s ears and convincing them to give into vice. Sam and Dean arrive expecting a “boarded-up factory town,” and find Party Central instead.

Dean’s a little tempted because of his whole “less than a year to live” thing, but he doesn’t let it distract him from the real job. (it’s just a shame he hasn’t memorized that exorcism yet… but hey at least he learns that lesson after this episode).

Sam again gets it wrong about who the demon might actually be.

Poor Richie the rather incompetent hunter wasn’t even able to suss out how he was in danger, and essentially played right into the demon’s hands. Any hunter worth his salt would know better than to fall for what Richie did…

Dean goes off to look for Richie because he suspects Bad Things Have Happened to him, while Sam goes haring off on the wrong lead… not giving Dean any of the details. Because if he had, Dean would’ve told Sam what he’d learned about the bartender. The shady characters Sam went after turned out to be humans (like the weirdo he ran after in 4.05 who also turned out to be human). I mean, these guys were kinda scumbag-ish humans, but they hadn’t been the ones possessed by the demons who were causing all these problems.

Gosh isn’t talking to each other a good idea? Coulda saved a lot of trouble. Because Dean had zeroed in on the REAL evil thing, by tracking Richie. He’d found the demon’s lair, discovered Richie’s body, and set a trap for her. Dean was two steps of her, but she was a few steps ahead of him.

(to be fair he’s gradually getting better at this game, but he had an awful lot of catching up to do back then)

Dean ends up on even footing with Casey the demon, both equally trapped together, both waiting for their “partner” to come free them.

_Look, we won’t have any effect on the outcome of this._

Aah, the beginning of Free Will being the highest ideal of humanity. Dean is absolutely not prepared to just lie down and accept whatever happens. 

**CASEY** : Kind of funny, don’t you think? You and me sitting here like a couple of regular folk.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, it’s hilarious, you know, in that … apocalyptic sort of way.  
 **CASEY** : You’re all right, Dean. (DEAN scoffs.) The others don’t describe you that way. But, you know, you’re — you’re likable.  
 **DEAN** : A demon likes me. Sorry, I don’t know how to respond to that.  
 **CASEY** : You could say thanks. (pause) That deal you made to save Sam — a lot of others would mock you for it, think it was weak or stupid. I don’t.  
 **DEAN** : It’s been kind of liberating, actually. Y’know, what’s the point in worrying about a future, when you don’t have one?

Which leads to a rather strange moment for Dean. He has a chance to talk to this demon for a while, and starts to see her as a person. Partly because after she reveals that the Big Plan that was supposed to begin after Azazel opened the Devil’s Gate, that Sam was supposed to lead their army to victory… and she’d been ready to follow Sam.

But then Sam killed her over Dean’s protests, sowing the seeds of doubt about Sam:

**DEAN** : That maybe when … Sam came back from (shrugs) well wherever, … that maybe he came back different.  
 **BOBBY** : Different how?  
 **DEAN** : I don’t know. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good. You think … think something’s wrong with my brother?  
 **BOBBY** : (pauses briefly) No. Demons lie. I’m sure Sam’s okay.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah. Yeah, me too.

But we see what’s really different about Sam… the little “fallen angel” on his shoulder (in Ruby’s own words as she manipulates him into believing he’s doing the right thing… as he’s threatening to kill her with the Colt she’d just “fixed” for him…)

**RUBY** : This won’t be easy, Sam. You’re gonna have to do things that go against that gentle nature of yours. There’ll be collateral damage… But, it has to be done.

Sam really believes he’s doing the right thing, and hiding the truth from Dean because he KNOWS Dean would try and stop him.

That doesn’t sound anything like s12 at all…

[spn 3.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.04) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)

 

[Apr 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159196522495/309-evil-book-club-i-think-this-is-hilarious)

23 notes

3.09: EVIL BOOK CLUB

(I think this is hilarious, because I made a post the other day about how similar the little meta community I tend to talk with the most on here are sort of like a book club who talks about Supernatural instead of a book… but hey at least we’re not using black magic to kill people and stuff…)

So we have a demon who infiltrates a suburban book club and tempts a group of ladies into using witchcraft. It’s all innocuous at first, using spells to get themselves lower mortgage rates and keep their gardens looking pretty year round. Until some very human issues lead them to cross lines from “innocent” witchcraft into “witch on witch violence.”

(And why does the rabbit always get screwed in the deal?! The poor little guy.)

In this case, “book club” is the wink-wink code word for “coven.”

**TAMMI** : We can’t… stop.  
 **ELIZABETH** : But people are dying!  
 **RENEE** [scoffs] Amanda killed herself yes. And yes, she killed Janet. Awful, awful business of course, but that’s all over now. And think about what Book Club has gotten us hmm? Your husband’s promotion, that little trip to Hawaii that you won. And what about me? My home pottery business is finally taking off and you wanna just stop? Do you wanna stop?  
ELIZABETH shakes her head ‘no’ and RENEE claps her hands together.

They were deluding themselves out of a sense of personal greed. They were getting too much out of this for themselves. But Elizabeth has her doubts. Yes, she may have benefited from the harmless things she’d used those magical spells to achieve, but when she was confronted with the truth of the source of those magical spells…

**SAM** : Well see, her house was littered with Satanic paraphernalia.  
 **DEAN** : A regular Black Sabbath.  
 **ELIZABETH** : No, the— but she was an Episcopalian.  
 **DEAN** : Well, then we’re pretty sure she was using the wrong Bible.

Dean had also been hesitant to “stop” the coven:

**DEAN** : If they killed the nut-job, should we uh, thank them or what?  
 **SAM** : They’re working black magic too, Dean. They need to be stopped.  
 **DEAN** : 'Stopped’ like stopped?  
SAM gives him a look that says 'of course’.  
 **DEAN** : They’re human, Sam.  
 **SAM** : They’re murderers.  
DEAN looks at SAM for a second with surprise and then shrugs in agreement.  
 **DEAN** : Burn witch, burn.

And here we have an uncomfortable little moment of hypocrisy from Sam. The witches deserve to die for using black magic, even if most of their spells are affecting “benign” ends (promotions at work, winning contests, etc.) They still killed someone, even if it was just “policing their own” for that one of their group who’d killed someone else with black magic…

And then Sam has his little lightbulb moment, courtesy of Ruby:

**DEAN** : Hey, hot stuff, we can take care of a few kitchen witches, thanks.  
 **RUBY** : I’m not talking about witches, you jackass. Witches are whores. I’m talking about who they serve.  
DEAN and SAM both look confused for a second, but then it dawns on SAM.  
 **SAM** : Demons. They get their power from demons.

Got it in one, Sammy. But Dean still doesn’t trust Ruby, either. Sam’s already been swayed by what Ruby’s done for them… and it takes until the episode, and Ruby saving Dean’s life directly when she just as easily could’ve let him die, for him to even consider trusting her at all. But he’s still wary. Unfortunately for Sam, it only reinforces to him that Ruby can be trusted.

That she’s “not like all the other demons.”

(insert gif of Dean experiencing period cramps as he falls victim to the witches’ latest curse)

This time it wasn’t a curse, it was the demon.

**TAMMI** : Funny story, actually. You remember all those dark demonic forces you prayed to, when you swore your servitude? Just who did you think you were praying to?  
 **ELIZABETH** : This-this isn’t – it can’t b—  
 **TAMMI** : What did you think it was? Make-believe? Positive thinking? The Secret? No, it was me. You sold yourself to me, you pig.  
ELIZABETH gasps and continues to stare at TAMMI in horror.  
 **TAMMI** : All I had to do was bring one good book to Book Club, and you ladies lined up to kiss my ass.  
 **ELIZABETH** : No, no, we didn’t know—  
 **TAMMI** : Oh, yes you did. You knew every step of the way, and now your ever livin’ souls are mine.

These women had deluded themselves into believing everything was okay with what they were doing. Like Sam did with trusting Ruby.

God he just wanted so bad to believe.

I’ll say it again, hubris is bad.

This is also the episode we learn where demons come from, and how they’re made. That they all used to be humans before they went to Hell. So now not only do we learn that using these demonic magical forces (*coughSam’spowerscough*) is the equivalent of selling one’s soul to the demon who grants them to you, but that all hellbound souls will eventually become demons. Including Dean’s…

So in a way, understanding this stuff ^^ is probably influencing how the BMoL view hunters like Sam and Dean who “work with demons and witches,” and believe it’s left them compromised in the same way the ladies in this coven were “compromised” by their willingness to borrow a demon’s powers. Thing is, by s12 the Winchesters are in a very different place. They’re in no way personally compromised, nor ignorant of the “cosmic consequences” of dealing with monsters.

It’s typically the Winchesters who’ve learned to use these things as tools for themselves.

And now it’s the BMoL who are embodying this hubris. It seems like most of their “specialized weapons” are based on the same sort of witchcraft that they’re accusing the Winchesters of having succumbed to the influence of… but framing it as “technology” allows them to feel like their hands are clean.

But what finally convinces Dean to question his thoughts about working with Ruby?

**RUBY** : Isn’t it obvious? I’m not like them. I don’t know why. I – I wish I was, but … I’m not. I remember what it’s like.  
 **DEAN** : What what’s like?  
 **RUBY** : Being human.

He may not believe her 100%, but it was just enough to sow a seed of doubt.

Much the same as the BMoL’s continued willingness to “help” the Winchesters in s12 has all been in an attempt to win Sam and Dean over, to manipulate them for their own ends. As much as Ruby used Sam in s3-s4, the BMoL are trying to use them again now.

And again, Dean’s not buying what they’re selling, even less than he ended up buying what Ruby was selling… Sam still wants to believe.

[spn 3.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.09) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [demons i get people are crazy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/demons-i-get-people-are-crazy) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [hubris is bad](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hubris-is-bad)

 

[Apr 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159232535180/312-aka-you-cant-save-all-the-people-all-the)

21 notes

3.12: aka you can’t save all the people all the time (or anyone at all really, especially when you’re being herded down a hall in chains to your destiny by a bunch of demons)

This is still one of my favorite episodes of this show. Here’s why.

Bela has stolen the Colt and they’ve been trying to get it back since 3.10. I suppose they were getting too close, because she sets a trap for them, calls in the FBI, and that lands them in jail.

(why is it that every time these guys get their hands on the Colt it’s through some pretty painful sacrifices and bucketloads of deception?)

A lot of innocent (and otherwise ignorant people) are put in harm’s way.

Poor VIctor Henriksen. Sign him up for that big, frosty mug of wasting his damn life. He’s SO CONFIDENT this time. He’s got this big plan in place to transfer Sam and Dean to a supermax prison, he’s been waiting for this chance after they’ve eluded him twice before. Because he thinks Sam and Dean are a couple of psycho nutjobs. He is absolutely convinced he’s got them now. He’s even got a helicopter to whisk them away… until the demons blow it up…

Victor thinks the Winchesters have brought an army with them. He does’t believe it’s demons until he’s possessed and Sam exorcises the demon from him.

**DEAN** : I owe the biggest “I told you so” ever. 

And here’s another instance of Dean and his weird gut instincts:

**DEAN** : It’s kind of wild, right? I mean it’s like they’re coming for us. They’ve never done that before. (DEAN smiles) It’s like we got a contract on us. Think it’s because we’re so awesome? I think it’s ‘cause we’re so awesome. (He smiles again, but stops smiling after SAM looks at him, unamused)

The demons after them are organized. They’re working together. THEY have a plan and they’ve got the Winchesters cornered and pinned down. After the warning the demon in 3.10 gave them, that there’s a new demon leader stepping up, it’s like this is a demonstration of power. And Dean’s right, I think it’s because they’re so awesome… just not in the way they’d want to be considered awesome…

(from outside this episode, knowing about Lilith and Ruby from post 4.22, this episode takes on a MUCH darker meaning. It’s a test, a nudge to Sam and Dean– but ESPECIALLY to Sam– to demonstrate exactly the lesson that Ruby needed him to learn.)

Saving Victor proves everything Sam and Dean have been saying to Victor since they first met. The entire truth of their lives, hunting, the supernatural… and Victor believes it all.

(oh god I still wish he’d lived and become a hunter, but that would’ve just been too much of a helpful thing to Sam and Dean. The narrative was trying to push them into a corner, put their backs to the wall where it seemed like they only had one way out– the convenient path the demons cleared for them so they could march to their “destinies.”)

(no wonder Dean’s instincts were pinging this as strange)

So they make a plan. Dean’s plan was EXCELLENT. If we can’t fight all those demons outside, then invite them in and trap them. Then Sam’s brilliant mass exorcism via PA system takes care of them all in one fell swoop. It was brilliant, but there was one tiny flaw in the plan.

Ruby was there with her own plan. She offered to work a spell that would “vaporize every demon in a one mile radius,” including her. Very noble, very selfless, right? And she PUSHED for them to choose her plan. PUSHED HARD FOR IT. She was willing to die for her cause, after all. But she also had a solid feeling that Sam and Dean would never go for her plan, since it had a major catch: slaughtering an innocent.

She know Dean would never go for killing an innocent in order to save the group. So, on to plan B. Let Sam and Dean do their thing and then rig the game…

(sounds an awful lot like the “test” Uriel and Cas are executing on Sam and Dean in 4.07 when you put it this way)

Basically this entire episode boils down to Dean’s instincts vs Ruby’s “witchcraft,” and it’s all about manipulating Sam into trusting Ruby for the long con.

(because hey, who broke the salt line to let Ruby in…)

This is where Dean learns about Lilith, and also that Sam had lied to him (or at least hidden the fact that Lilith existed since he learned it in 3.10). And Ruby’s first suggestion is that they use the Colt to save themselves, then is indignant that they let it get stolen.

Recall if you will this entire episode was predicated on the fact that they were trying to steal it back from Bela when they were arrested by Victor…

And also recall that we learn in 3.15 that Bela had stolen the Colt in the first place to give to a demon– LILITH. Who we know is playing the long con with Ruby. So Ruby walks into this entire situation with the whole deck stacked in her favor.

(Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here. I win. So, I win.)

(Ruby was a winner)

Dean and Victor are wholeheartedly against killing Nancy. But Sam has started thinking of people as a math problem… and that’s a problem. Ruby’s got a wedge and she’s gonna drive it in hard.

**DEAN** : Please tell me you’re not actually considering this. We’re talking about holding down a girl and cutting out her heart.  
 **SAM** : And we’re also talking about 30 people out there, Dean. Innocent people who are all gonna die, along with everyone in here.  
 **DEAN** : It doesn’t mean that we throw away the rule book and stop acting like humans. I’m not gonna let that demon kill some nice, sweet, innocent girl, who hasn’t even been laid. I mean, look, if that’s how you win wars, then I don’t want to win.

Then Ruby leaves. Because her part of the plan is done for now. She’s tested Sam and Dean, and she knew Dean would choose the “right” thing in the end. But it’s not Dean she cares about. She needed to water the seeds of doubt she’d sowed in Sam, and the Beans of Dubious Morality are coming along nicely… If Dean hadn’t been there to stop him, Sam would’ve agreed to Ruby’s “kill the virgin” plan.

(not to mention Sam’s also primed by the lessons the Trickster wanted him to learn in 3.11, about what life was going to be like without Dean, and how NOTHING he did could actually save him from his fate… so he’s walking into this situation fresh off six months worth of horror reliving Dean’s death over and over and over again, and the rather terrifying lengths he’s willing to go to when he thinks Dean’s gone for good…)

Dean, on the other hand, prepares as best he can and then intentionally invites the demons in. And if there hadn’t been a much larger trap already descending on Sam and Dean, courtesy of Ruby and Lilith, his plan would’ve worked.

The exorcism worked, but one single demon escaped to report back to Lilith. Not that it even mattered, because Ruby had reported in already.

So Sam and Dean save the day, and Victor “kills them,” at least on paper. They’ve won themselves a powerful ally in law enforcement, until Lilith kills him and everyone else they’d saved.

And Ruby shows up to taunt them with all these people’s deaths. And with that, Sam is won over (and morally compromised):

**RUBY** : Don’t thank me. Lilith killed everyone. She slaughtered your precious little virgin, plus a half a dozen other people. So after your big speech about humanity and war, turns out your plan? was the one with the body count. Do you know how to run a battle? You strike fast and you don’t leave any survivors. So no one can go running to tell the boss. So next time… we go with my plan.

[spn 3.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.12) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [spn 3.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.10) [spn 3.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.15) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...)

 

[Apr 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159281287500/at-first-i-thought-the-ep19-colt-blurb-meant-dean)

10 notes

**Anonymous asked: At first I thought the ep19 colt blurb meant dean found out mary was one who stole it from that yellow eyes guy, but your tags made me think it was stolen again? Not sure which you thought but I was so hoping it was actually Dean finding out about Mary taking the Colt. Which do you think it is?**

Well, we see Mick handing it over to Sam in the promo photos for tonight’s episode, so I assume Sam is going to use it on Dagon tonight, which means Dean’s gonna see it and find out how Sam came to have it, and the whole story’s gonna blow up for Dean tonight (or possibly unfold next week… we shall see)

I think after tonight, Dean’s gonna “lay claim” to the Colt and NOT hand it back to the BMoL like a good soldier (like Mary did in 12.12, and like Sam obviously did at the end of 12.14). Dean’s gonna keep it.

And in 12.19, it’s gonna be stolen from him. Again.

Probably by a BMoL operative. At least that’s my guess. Especially knowing how easily Mick was able to infiltrate the bunker (Like Toni was in 11.23), and the reminder that the keys to ALL the MOL worldwide chapter houses are identical, so they’re not really safe in their “home.”

Which is why I think Mick has so comfortably moved himself in to the Bunker… because  _he can_. It’s more a power display or threat than any sort of camaraderie. At least, knowing how much Mick is actively deceiving them all, that’s how I’m seeing it.

[spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [mick of the mol](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mick-of-the-mol) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt)

 

[Apr 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159281873670/i-am-willing-to-lay-bets-that-dean-already-knows)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: I am willing to lay bets that Dean already knows about the Colt from an offscreen talk with Sam but I hope I'm wrong. I just get the impression from listening to TPTB say Sam and Dean are both complicit working with the BMOL (in that little preview thing) that Dean's story isn't going to diverge much from Sam's. Hope I'm wrong because I'm really wanting to see Dean's reaction to learning about Mary taking the Colt.**

Oh, I don’t know. I’m actually willing to lay bets that he DOESN’T know. Because if he did, he’d know how the MoL got their hands on it, and the full extent of Mary’s betrayal back at that barn…

And I think the fact Sam hasn’t told him about it means Sam knows that it would be a deal breaker for Dean working with the MoL.

Because Sam didn’t retain custody of the Colt after killing the Alpha Vamp, and flat-out lied to Dean about how the Alpha was killed. He credited the MoL for that…

But after tonight? Yeah, Dean’s not gonna let that gun go again, and no way in blue heckeroo is he gonna let the BMoL keep it after tonight.

I just don’t think there’s any way that Dean could already know about the Colt (and the awfulness surrounding it, and the lies, and the betrayal) and have continued on his merry way like he has the last few episodes.

[spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [i've been outraged on his behalf since 12.12 aired](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ve-been-outraged-on-his-behalf-since-12.12-aired) [trust me he will not be please finding out any of this AT ALL](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/trust-me-he-will-not-be-please-finding-out-any-of-this-AT-ALL)

 

[Apr 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159342331975/wait-if-mick-is-dead-then-does-that-mean-no-one)

39 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: Wait, if Mick is dead then does that mean no one in the BMoL know how to make bullets for The Colt? I'd like to think killing Mick was a horrible idea and it will backfire. I mean, Dr. Hess did say Renny was their best operative. It doesn't sound too much to hope that they killed Mick forgetting that only Mick knows how to create the bullets. I doubt they pre-planned things to do should Mick die. XDD**

WELL THAT’S A VERY GOOD REASON FOR MICK TO HAVE BEEN KILLED.

That was actually the one bit of 12.14 that had really, really upset me. That Sam gave him the recipe and the spell to make those bullets. The Colt had been a fancy paperweight before he did that. I didn’t like the idea of the BMoL having the power to make that gun work AT ALL.

Then again, Mick was Mr. File All The Reports, so I wouldn’t count out the likelihood that he did write down the recipe and spell somewhere. But who knows? In the aftermath of that disaster he may not have been focusing on the details, and Sam could’ve destroyed the recipe he’d written down.

Maybe, maybe not.

But heck, if Renny was their best operative, then I kinda feel bad for the MoL right now… because he was a poncy numbnut.

No, wait… that’s a numbat. Numbats are cool.

He’d probably be more effective than any three Kendricks graduates, too.

So I guess we’re back to Sam and Dean being the only ones who know how to work the Colt (unless Mick filed a report on it, which I’m having a hard time imagining he didn’t).

(but I hope he didn’t)

[the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [mick of the mol](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mick-of-the-mol) [kajuned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kajuned)

 

[May 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160661574275/yeah-ive-been-thinking-that-arguably-eileens)

31 notes

**[flyingfish1](https://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/) asked: Yeah, I've been thinking that arguably Eileen's death can be partially traced back to Mary's resurrection and that "ripple effect," since Mary was the one to bring the Colt back into play. I don't know if that'll be plot-relevant later or if it's just one of those things we're left to contemplate on our own, but... yeah.**

Yeah, it seems like everything that’s happened since the Colt came back has been a slow slide… I wrote something the other day about how it gave Dean a false sense of confidence in 12.18, and I think that’s a pretty good description of practically everything that’s happened since 12.08.

They finally thought the whole Lucifer mess had been cleared up, and instead of running in that moment of false confidence, they idiotically stood there with President Rooney.

Why?

In the next scene the Secret Service breaks down the door and arrests them. Kelly escapes, and pretty much everything begins going wrong… or we begin to SEE how it’s been going wrong all along… Lucifer isn’t really back in the cage, Crowley’s been running schemes behind the scenes, the MoL have much larger plans for America that don’t really seem at all related to just putting an end to the Winchesters’ messing with the natural order.

But all of that first-half-of-the-season success– even Cas learning the truth about Ishim and Lily Sunder, even taking out Ramiel, begins to nosedive after the Colt is smuggled out under their noses. We start seeing the lies and machinations that have been working beneath the surface of the entire season.

The lies aren’t all on Mary, nor on Crowley. Some of them are on Sam and Dean (for not giving Mary the full story earlier in the season, for not demanding the full truth from her, for not telling EACH OTHER the full truth). Some of them are on Cas (not telling them in advance that he was going to Heaven to seek assistance in tracking down Kelly and Dagon, not wanting their help in order to keep them safe while he cleaned up what he believes is his mess… going all the way back to saying yes to Lucifer in 11.10– guilt makes us do stupid things).

But they’d all been on essentially the same page until after the Colt came back. Things started going to heck at lot faster after that point. The ripples spread wider, the BMoL that originally sent two people to run their US Operation were suddenly sending dozens. The chaos factor has been doubling week after week.

And really, you can trace almost ALL of it back to Mary’s reappearance.

Cas going off to hunt for Lucifer alone in 12.03… and insisting that Sam and Dean stay behind to have their family time with Mary… Cas believing that Mary belonged there with them because she was their family, and that he might NOT belong there with them… If Mary hadn’t been there, Cas would’ve been working with Sam and Dean since the jump.

Even in 12.02, Mary proved to be a distraction that got Dean captured by the MoL. Because if he hadn’t left Cas behind to make sure Mary stayed safe, he wouldn’t have been approaching their safe house alone. Cas would’ve spotted the ward, Dean would’ve dismantled them, and they both would’ve been in that basement together to rescue Sam. They wouldn’t have been forced to call a truce and negotiate with the MoL. Her mere presence had already knocked over that first domino.

And all season it’s forced Sam and Dean both to really “grow up” in a lot of ways, and look far more objectively at who they are and what’s made them into the people they are now. And seeing just how much of that was based on reality, and how much was based on the story that became the story.

But there has to reach a point where those cosmic consequences reach beyond their ability to contain them, and I think that’s what began happening in 12.14. They were given a glimpse of the extent of the MoL operation here, and they chose to try and work WITHIN that system. Sam “fixed” the Colt, and that seems to be the moment everything truly started going to heckeroo and they weren’t quite as able to keep a hold on the consequences. Dean was forced to kill an “innocent” vampire to prevent Ketch from torturing her to death for funsies. Sam was forced to kill the Alpha Vampire with the Colt, because he refused to negotiate.

12.15 gives us a rogue hellhound that answers to no one but Lucifer. An invisible monster that’s nearly impossible to control or kill… (and Cas making the awful choice to go back to Heaven)

12.16 has Claire bitten by a werewolf, but saved at the very last second, nearly dying, but still miraculously walking away from the ordeal. 

12.17 has Dagon in a position to potentially kill all of them, and the Colt proving rather useless… and Eileen accidentally shooting Top Of His Class because Dagon SET IT UP THAT WAY. She stood between them, looked directly at Eileen, and knew that bullet would hit the mark.

12.18 has Dean entirely overconfident at having the Colt back, and it nearly gets him eaten by Moloch. Sam arrived at the very last minute after Dean was already down. It didn’t really feel like much of a victory. It was such a close call it inspired them to get all morbid about their legacy…

12.19 has Cas returning, a bunch of miscommunication and  _almost full communication_ , and feelings, and pain, and trading up on the curse of the Colt for whatever the nephilim has done to Cas…  Like this was the point the cosmic consequences started to bounce back directly at them and ripple outward again in double-time.

They’d had an opportunity to “fix their mess” back in 12.09, but their fate was sealed long before that. The moment Mary arrived to shake things the way she did with her mere presence.

What was this even about again? *scrolls up… and up and up* Eileen.

And now Mary’s having her will erased by the Men of Letters, who intend to enforce their own will on not just her, but on the balance of nature itself. Their intent is to bring peace to the world, but it’s not a REAL peace. It’s their IDEA of peace. And it most certainly is not freedom, nor is it balanced. It’s horrifying and self-serving… and we have that theme illustrated through the twig dolls in 12.20, the way the witch had used her power without care for anyone else, because she liked things a certain way and the twig people were merely intelligent automatons she could bend to her will to serve her own needs. Max may have used that power to “resurrect” Alicia, but he now has the moral dilemma of what that sort of power over someone might actually MEAN for him. We see the very negative use of a very similar power the MoL have over Mary, and the up-for-debate version of a very similar power the nephilim seems to have over Cas right now.

We’ve seen Sam and Dean try to work within the system that had slowly been (invisibly to them) stripping any power they’d had to make things right– infiltrating the bunker, monitoring their activity, manipulating where and when they went on hunts, WHAT they were even sent after to kill. They didn’t even notice they were already surrendering bits and pieces of their will (metaphorically), or at the very least their autonomy, to the MoL all along… And they didn’t realize the extent of the MoL’s operations, or just how deep Mary was involved with them, until they’d spread too far to contain alone.

Now we have Ketch locking them up in the relic of what the MoL used to be– when they were truly preceptors and archivists set to study and learn about the supernatural, and not attempting to create a new world order with that knowledge– essentially disposing of them and that legacy in one fell swoop.

*scrolls up again*

Yeah, Eileen’s family legacy as an old-school MoL was a part of that reckoning, and her death as the only other legacy who was untainted by the modern BMoL and their agenda, the only other legacy who was ready to stand up to what that legacy had been twisted into by the likes of Dr. Hess and the “old men” back in Britain… it’s just a horrifying waste. I feel like she deserved to be there to celebrate her personal legacy being put right, as well.

I think I made at least one point in here somewhere…

[spn 12.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.21) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [men of letters vs hunters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/men-of-letters-vs-hunters) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [come on eileen](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/come-on-eileen) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [the story became the story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-story-became-the-story) [*probably just put all my s12 meta tags here*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aprobably-just-put-all-my-s12-meta-tags-here%2A) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics)

 

[Jun 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161584633890/im-pretty-certain-mary-and-lucifer-will-return)

16 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: I'm pretty certain Mary and Lucifer will return next season. There's still a lot of unfinished business involving Mary. Dean hasn't found out that Mary stole The Colt from Ramiel and Sam hasn't found out that Ketch killed Magda. If the show is trying to tie up loose ends, they should reveal all secrets. I see no benefit in Mary disappearing with all this info. Not to mention, Mary doesn't even know about Samuel's attempt to murder Sam and Dean. I think they should all sit down and talk.**

Yeah, I’m positive we’ll see Mary and Lucifer next season. I was talking to @shixpe last night, and we agreed we’d like to see Mary just keep punching Lucifer in the face most of the season with those brass knuckles.

> mittensmorgul: Heck I just kinda want to watch her punch luci clear across that entire AU. Just keep punching him and knocking him over
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> Therapeutic.
> 
> shixpe: lmao
> 
> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/): Maybe when she meets up with AU Bobby, she can hand over the brass knuckles to him for a little while so she can like take a nap and have some lunch. But otherwise, yeah. Let her keep hitting him until Jack comes back to let her out. 

But really, Mary does have unresolved issues, because Luci was symbolically behind every bad thin that ever happened to her. Yes, it was prophecy/destiny/fate whatever that drove all of Heaven and Hell to target her family, but Azazel who murdered John and her family to broker that deal with her was working on Lucifer’s orders. Heck, Cain and Abel were lured in to Lucifer’s service way back at the beginning of humanity, setting that curse on her family. And now they’re STILL dealing with problems that he’s caused on Earth via Jack. I’d say Mary’s got plenty of frustrations to vent at that guy.

On the flip side of that, Lucifer has never been around a proper Mother Figure. I would like for Mary to have multiple occasions to invoke the Mom Voice, because Luci’s basically a bratty teenager and he could frankly use some of that.

Considering everything that’s happened now (the BMoL folks are pretty much all dead, Mary’s had that moment of understanding with Dean, Cas is in even more peril now than he was in 12.12…), I don’t know if they’re ever going to show us the rest of the resolutions/conversations on your list.

The only people who know that Ketch killed Magda are dead. They may discover through some other channels that Magda never made it to her aunt’s house, but I’m beginning to believe that information was really just for us, the audience. (As sad as I am about that, both for Magda and for Sam)

I think with the Colt now useless again, and Dean having his moment of forgiveness with Mary, that information may never come up again. Sam actually does know how Mary got the Colt from Ramiel, so it’s possible that might come out anyway if Sam and Dean continue working on fixing the Colt next season.

As for what happened with Samuel in s6, I’m not sure how relevant that is to Mary now. She sort of lived through her own version of that entire plot– doing something morally questionable in the name of their “lost” children. At this point, I’m not sure what value there would be in Mary learning that her father had done all of that with the promise of resurrecting her in exchange for his service to Crowley. Again, I feel that was more of a parallel for us to witness, to help us understand Mary’s motivations and actions in that context.

This is another one of those things I said all season that wasn’t about foreshadowing so much as using the past to show us similar themes that are being subverted. They are finding another way. Sam and dean reached a resolution and understanding and forgiveness with Mary, unlike with Samuel who continued to be willing to sacrifice them in order to bring Mary back.

I think we’re just going to have to wait to see if any of these other points get some sort of resolution, whether through a new narrative parallel like Mary played against Samuel’s s6 arc, or if they’re brought up again directly.

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [spn s6](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s6) [spn 12.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.04) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23)[lucifer (the one on spn)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lucifer-%28the-one-on-spn%29) [no really please just give me an entire episode of mary punching luci in the face](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/no-really-please-just-give-me-an-entire-episode-of-mary-punching-luci-in-the-face) [kajuned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kajuned)

 

[Sep 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165301715495/i-love-rewatching-chunks-of-episodes-all-in-a-row)

20 notes

I love rewatching chunks of episodes all in a row (hence my addiction to the TNT loop), because it keeps small details of past canon fresh in my mind, but also puts bigger details in a context that might add significance to some of those small details..

For example… 3.10 and 3.12… when looked back on from the perspective of 3.15, it gives the Colt’s disappearance a lot of nuance. In 3.10, we know Bela initially refused to help the boys acquire some dream root, but then shows up inexplicably with a vague (and later proven spurious) reason for her change of heart.

What we already know about Bela– that she has a dark and mysterious background, that she uses supernatural methods to find the objects that she sells to the highest bidder, and that she’s in the business for the money– and what we find out later about her (her demon deal and the reasons behind it), leave room for us to imagine that perhaps some of her “sources” for info and perhaps even some of her clients themselves could very well be supernatural beings, or even demons like Crowley (who also has a vast collection of useful and important supernatural artifacts).

I’m wondering now if Ruby (knowing what we know about Ruby from post 4.22) hadn’t been the one to even tell Bela about the Colt in the first place. She was working for Lilith, after all, and Bela does eventually tell Sam and Dean that Lilith was the demon who held both of their contracts. It only makes sense that Ruby could’ve been the “middleman” for that entire arrangement.

The fact that Sam and Dean had “conveniently” just lost the Colt RIGHT BEFORE this organized army of demons who were technically working under Lilith’s orders, cornered Sam and Dean in that police station (where they’d only been held because Bela called in the tip to the FBI about Sam and Dean’s location… and honestly how did Bela know everything she’d need to put this entire scenario into play unless she’d been instructed by someone who was working closely with Lilith all along?), makes it so much easier for Dean, but ESPECIALLY for Sam, to doubt themselves and perhaps be more willing to put their trust in Ruby.

The entire story of s3 seems to hinge on manipulating Sam into this vulnerable state (illustrated PERFECTLY by 3.11, i.e. the episode sandwiched in between these other two episodes setting up the fate of the Colt).

But long-term? Ruby had been the one to first try and earn their trust by killing the demons Greed, Pride, and Gluttony, and then showing Bobby exactly how to make the Colt work again in the first place. It’s almost like she was taunting them and stringing them along with what she could offer them in terms of help, only to yank it away from them again as soon as they became reliant on her.

Since it’s exactly the technique she uses to bait Sam along in late s4, disappearing and leaving him strung out and jonesing for her blood, showing up again at the moment it’s most advantageous for her. It’s Ruby’s MO, and I think it’s all set up by her “giveth and taketh away” with the Colt.

(also, doesn’t it feel an awful like Cas’s threat to Dean in 4.02– “There’s a bigger picture here. You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.” And isn’t that a convenient parallel, since Cas is the angel on Dean’s shoulder in contrast to Ruby spending s4 as the demon on Sam’s shoulder…)

[spn 3.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.01) [spn 3.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.04) [spn 3.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.10) [spn 3.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.11) [spn 3.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.12) [spn 3.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.15) [spn 4.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.02) [spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22)[ruby](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ruby) [the colt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-colt) [the special agony of brainwashing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-special-agony-of-brainwashing) [or manipulation or whatever... it's all the same for narrative purposes here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-manipulation-or-whatever...-it%27s-all-the-same-for-narrative-purposes-here)


	59. Chapter 59

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Practicalities of Monster Hunting

[Jun 23, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/146363412520/where-do-sam-and-dean-put-their-guns-when-theyre)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: Where do Sam and Dean put their guns when they're walking around? Also, are they always carrying guns when they're outside?**

I confess I read that first question as the set up for a joke and then I thought I didn’t understand the punchline…

Oh gosh, hi. I’m Mittens. I just woke up and haven’t had coffee yet…

*insert SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS LATER gif*

No, I’m still here, but I have coffee now. :D

That’s one of the reasons they wear so many layers, so they can hide more weapons (and also as protection in fights, and from the elements). I’ve read several different articles in the past about the production side, that having them always dress in multiple layers also helps hide things like flack jackets worn during fight scenes or stunts, and makes it easier to substitute in stunt men, etc. But within the context of Sam and Dean Winchester, super hunters, the layers really do make sense for hiding weapons.

Even back in the early days when Sam was still pretty fresh out of Stanford, he always had a few weapons to hand. I’m thinking of 1.16 Shadow where Meg had them both tied up (and presumably took their guns before doing so), but  _both of them_  still had at least one hidden knife they could reach while tied with their arms behind their backs.

It was even a plot point in the  _pilot_  episode that Dean needed to start carrying paperclips on his person after being handcuffed and left in the police station alone. I’m pretty sure that after that, he’d do his best to hide small lockpick tools in all his clothes. Sam, too.

There are tons of weapons specifically designed to be carried in a concealed fashion, especially when you dress in bulky layers of clothes they’ve likely modified in small ways to accommodate them. Extra pocket inside the jacket, small tools fastened to the underside of a belt, knives shoved down the side of a boot and hidden under the baggy cuff of jeans, etc. I mean there’s a specific line of knives called “boot knives” that are designed to be carried this way. And there’s more than one reason Dean wears a lot of M-65 field jackets. They’re warm and versatile, yeah, but they’re also designed specifically to carry lots of gear (with “gear” being military speak for “weapons” in this case).

My guess is that yeah, they’ve probably learned their lesson and don’t often leave home without at least one gun somewhere on them. I’m specifically thinking back to 1.06 Skin right now, where they both had to walk around to the trunk of the car and Dean hands Sam a gun that he tucks in the back of his pants. So up to that point, he hadn’t been armed. Dean even describes their weapons as one of the “perks” of being hunters.

Unless I’m going to the airport, I  _always_  have a pocket knife on me, and have for years. My favorite way to wear my hair is twisted up into a bun and held in place with a hair spike. Before [@neven-ebrez](https://tmblr.co/mRFCt_tNo_vLQW2MDxeT8zg) started selling Angel Blade hair spikes (which are fabulous btw) I mostly wore either one made of wood or my favorite one which is basically a thin silver dagger. It’s SUPER POINTY. And I’m not even a hunter who expects to be attacked by monsters at every turn, so I can only imagine the paranoia with which they were raised and the absolute necessity of carrying multiple weapons at all times that they can reach even in various states of incapacitation.

Just remember the scene in in 8.02 where Dean has to hand over all his weapons at the auction house. I mean, it’s kind of hilarious because it’s one of those WHERE DID HE HIDE ALL THOSE? scenes straight out of a parody of a spy movie or something.

He was not a happy camper having to give all those weapons up.

So yeah, back at the beginning of the series (or even before, when they were younger), when they’d been immersed in hunter culture and trained to be paranoid and always ready to fight, they may have still held on to the illusion that they were “safer” when they weren’t actively hunting anything and maybe only carried a few trusted blades hidden on their person. But a lot of “normal” people do this too. Now, after having most of their illusions of safety shattered and been specifically sought out by angels and demons and monsters and humans alike, I doubt they ever leave the house unarmed.

If I were them? I certainly wouldn’t.

As for the joke, “Where do Sam and Dean put their guns when they’re walking around?” I’m still trying to come up with a hilarious punchline.

  * Anywhere they want to?
  * Depends how much lube they’ve got?
  * strapped to their thighs?
  * in their pants?



Gosh I guess I still need more coffee. :P

[sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting) [and i can't believe i never had a tag for this sort of stuff before but i have one now!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-can%27t-believe-i-never-had-a-tag-for-this-sort-of-stuff-before-but-i-have-one-now%21)

 

[Jun 23, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/146384575140/thanks-for-answering-the-weapons-questions-i)

6 notes

**Anonymous asked: Thanks for answering the weapons questions! I thought Dean and Sam drew their guns from the inside of their jacket, or that they'd stick the gun at the back of their jeans and I went 'Wait, is that safe at all??' But I couldn't think of where else they'd put them.**

They usually keep one at the small of their backs. At least, that’s the place they always seem to reach for instinctively, like they expect to find a weapon there. And aside from in 7.12 I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them wear a shoulder holster. And 5.04’s infamous thigh holster…

I don’t know if Dean’s ever put one in the inside pocket of his jacket, but he does tend to keep big knives in there (i.e. Ruby’s knife, the leaf-bladed knife he was using in s10, and the one he shattered on Amara in 11.09, as well as the First Blade. Sometimes an angel blade, too.

They’re mostly inside the back of the belt guys. Glad neither of them has ever accidentally shot himself in butt. :P

[sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the practicalities of hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-practicalities-of-hunting) [was that the tag I gave this? i think it was...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/was-that-the-tag-I-gave-this%3F-i-think-it-was...) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

#  [SPN Anti-Trope Ideas (or has this been done already?)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155688089145/spn-anti-trope-ideas-or-has-this-been-done)

[Jan 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155688089145/spn-anti-trope-ideas-or-has-this-been-done)

55 notes

[durenjtmusings](https://durenjtmusings.tumblr.com/post/155601209957/spn-anti-trope-ideas-or-has-this-been-done):

> So I was planning out my trip out west this summer and suddenly realized that that you NEVER see Sam or Dean arguing about the best way to get somewhere. We also *rarely* see them consult a gps or map.
> 
> Yet, when I am traveling with ANY other adult, there are ALWAYS arguments about the best route and/or getting lost. Heck we even argue over which tool will give you the most accurate information about getting there.
> 
> Now I am sure we can meta-explain this all ways, but this got me to thinking about the idea of the Anti-Trope. Scenarios or situations startlingly ABSENT from a universe/canon. One of these that I HAVE seen discussed, and addressed, by the show was “When do these guys do laundry?” But I’m betting that there are a LOT of others in Supernatural that we could list and ALL of them would be great fanfic fodder. 
> 
> With a little thought, I came up with the following.  **Please comment (or message) with your ideas as well.**
> 
>   * **The lost/not lost/“stop and ask for directions” argument** , I mean…it’s TWO guys and guys NEVER stop to ask directions. SOMEONE should have triggered this scene at SOME point…I vote Jody.
>   * **Google vs MapQuest**  - The best/fastest way to get somewhere argument and/or the best tool for navigation info argument.
>   * **The beach**  - as we know, they’ve never taken a vacation at the beach. This anti-trope has already cropped up in the SMALL amount of fanfic I’ve read. Lots of fic writers seem to want to get the guys to the beach.
>   * **Water-based monsters**  - with the exception of the Ghost Ship in Season 1 (which Chuck thinks was bad writing), we’ve had almost no real water-based monsters (I’m not counting the mermaid because she was simply the preferred form for an ‘imaginary friend’). The lore is RIDDLED with fresh and salt water creepies - but the guys just don’t ever deal with those.
>   * **Love triangle**  - at no point in the show have we had Sam and Dean fall for the same person, or two people seriously fall for one of them and have the stereotypical “you have to choose” angst/fights. [I KNOW the poly folks have written healthy/ier triangle stories with Cas. I just wonder whether the more typical “I saw her/him first” stuff has been explored. ]
>   * **Sudden wealth**  - They guys have always hustled pool/credit cards for $. With the advent of the bunker, however, $ issues have pretty much vanished unless one of them was stranded. Money is the root of a LOT of dramas in real life. How about they find the MoL investment portfolio (which was likely QUITE formidable back then, and has GOT to have made a MINT by now) and have some arguments over $?
>   * **LACK of $**  - for the same reasons as above, the fact that they never argue over how to allocate $ when it is short is also interesting. Bet there are some backstory ideas to be explored here…
> 

> 
> **OK, that’s plenty out of MY head, YOUR turn!  
> **
> 
>   
> 

I’m sorry to use myself as an example when talking about Dean and Sam, but I can at least explain away the fact that they’ve never argued about directions.

(and again, apologies for assuming I understand Dean pretty well, but it happens so much I have a tag for that)

When I’m driving, Mr. Mittens just shuts up and lets me drive. Because I have never been lost. I never GET lost. (I said this to lizbob who called me a pigeon) But it’s true. It’s a combination of the fact that I am a Total Map Nerd who could read the Rand McNally Street Atlas for DAYS and the fact that I always seem to be able to point North. Mr. Mittens calls me the Human GPS. (He’s the human spellcheck. That’s his superpower)

The fact that Dean has spent his ENTIRE LIFE driving around the country, learning all the back roads and highways, has probably ingrained a similar sort of Human GPS power in him. After all these years, Sam probably doesn’t even question it. Dean just Knows Where To Go. It’s a fact of their lives. Why would he argue with it?

Regarding your other points, I think they’ve largely avoided water-based creatures because of the practicalities of filming. There was also the ghost trapped in the lake in 1.03, but really, filming IN the water in Vancouver has a lot of safety and practicality issues around it. In-show, this is sort of explained away by the fact that there’s plenty of land-based monsters to deal with… But I agree it would be cool if they could do a few water-related monsters (selkies? kelpies? I’d enjoy that. :D)

Part of the reason we’ve never seen a love triangle is that Sam and Dean are often attracted to different types of people. But also, Dean’s used to the transitory life. He hasn’t often looked for a RELATIONSHIP with anyone in a long time, because he’s only passing through town. Why bother fighting over someone who’s going to be a one-night-stand at most? Why risk creating a rift with the person he’s going to keep on seeing day after day (i.e. Sam) over who gets the random waitress or bartender in the Town of the Week? If one or the other of them seems to have a deeper connection with someone, I don’t think Sam or Dean would begrudge the other of their chance with that person, you know? I’m thinking of Sarah Blake in 1.18 here. Dean flirted with her, too, but in the end he deferred to Sam, because SHE was the one who seemed to show an interest in Sam. Dean stepped off. Why wouldn’t he?

Regarding money, I reblogged a post just a few minutes ago dating all the way back to s1 about Sam and Dean’s different attitudes towards money. But more recently, I like to imagine that they’re so used to living frugally, that even after finding the bunker and its seemingly unlimited resources and benefits (not having to pay for shelter as often, and I imagine they’ve probably hocked some of the stuff they’ve found in there), but also the fact that Charlie seemed to be able to move large sums of money around (and Dean seems to have picked up some of her tricks with hacking and so forth), I imagine they’ve seriously upped their game from “credit card fraud” to a lot of other shadier online things… But I’d love to have an episode address those things directly. 

[*added to the ongoing extensive list of reasons I am Dean Winchester*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aadded-to-the-ongoing-extensive-list-of-reasons-I-am-Dean-Winchester%2A) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

The difference they were trying to point out in 12.16, I believe, was Mick’s complete lack of understanding of the practicalities of hunting, or at least how Sam and Dean and most of the other hunters we’ve met have operated. He didn’t think twice about checking in to a very conspicuous hotel, of making his presence in the town as glaring as a beacon. Staying in that fancy hotel lacked any kind of stealth or subtlety.

Can you imagine them coming back from that hunt, and having to valet park their car covered in blood stains? And then walking through the sparkly lobby that way?

Or what about a case where they traipsed back to their rooms with a bunch of creepy evidence and lore books to pore over? Or some of the other more disgusting things they’ve brought into motel rooms over the years?

It’s just not  _practical_  to stay at places like that when you’re hunting. It’s so much better to stay at the sorts of places where nobody’s gonna ask questions about weird noises, odd smells, where the management is less likely to give a damn what they’re getting up to…

So even if they did have a MoL credit line to live off of, the only way staying at a fancy place like that would work long-term is if they intend to become the sort of hunters Mick and Ketch think they should be… go in, kill ALL THE MONSTERS, saunter off to the next genocide without a care.

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.16) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

[Apr 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159202032260/do-you-ever-get-this-feeling-in-the-earlier)

89 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: Do you ever get this feeling in the earlier seasons (like one or two) that Sam and Dean haven't really done much? Like, they're not the prestigious and highly experienced hunters they are said to be nowadays? They didn't know about vampires or rugarus, were barely equipped and rarely ever encountered a demon. Later seasons portray them as always hunting, always busy when young, but season one makes me feel like they were studying 70% of the time and not much else besides a ghost or three.**

[rachelhaimowitz](http://rachelhaimowitz.tumblr.com/post/159187194843/do-you-ever-get-this-feeling-in-the-earlier):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159174275915/do-you-ever-get-this-feeling-in-the-earlier):
>
>> Yeah, I think they were really, truly sheltered from a lot of the reality of what’s out there as kids.
>> 
>> I mean the few cases we do see from their childhood, it seems like even Dean was getting left behind as Sam’s caretaker more often than he was actively participating in larger hunts. Off the top of my head, notable mentions/flashbacks to their younger days. Note, I am not a fan of John Winchester’s parenting skills (or glaring lack thereof):
>> 
>> 1.18: The shtriga case where it essentially seems like John was using 5-year-old Sam as bait for the thing and trusting 9-year-old Dean to follow his order to shoot first, ask questions later and hope he was able to kill the thing before it killed Sam >.>
>> 
>> 3.08: it’s never even mentioned WHY John missed Christmas, just implied he was hunting something… and he’d left his journal behind for Sam to find. Kinda makes me think he WANTED Sam to find it, again leaving the hard work of trying to explain everything to Dean…
>> 
>> 4.13: Even though Dean had to be too old to be hanging out in high school if SAM was also in high school >.> he still got left behind on a longer, theoretically more complicated or dangerous hunt…
>> 
>> 4.19: We know John had been hunting a ghoul when he met Adam’s mother in 1990, so Dean would’ve been about 11 and Sam would’ve been about 7. They obvs weren’t with him on that case. No idea why, or where they were. They probably did know about ghouls in general though. Like ghosts and vengeful spirits and things, John probably thought of them as safely distanced from the demon to tell them about.
>> 
>> 7.03: We see Sam accidentally make friends with one of the monsters Dean and John were hunting. Not a common monster, either. I don’t think we’ve seen another kitsune (or even heard of another one in passing).
>> 
>> 9.07: Dean claims he’d received his injuries from a werewolf (but in 2.17 he was all excited about a werewolf case because he hadn’t seen one since they were kids, meaning it wasn’t something they’d run across often at all)
>> 
>> 11.08: We know Sam was largely left behind on his own while John and Dean were going on hunts. 
>> 
>> It largely seems like John deliberately kept them out of the Major Monster hunts, and kept them informed about these “one off” sorts of hunts. The rare things that didn’t have vast networks or social hierarchies, you know?
>> 
>> Even in 1.06 we learn the shapeshifter may have even been the first one of its kind they’ve encountered, and we’ve seen them quite a bit over the years now.
>> 
>> Plus John said he’d never told them about vampires because he’d thought they were extinct. >.>
>> 
>> Then explain Gordon Walker. :P
>> 
>> A lot of hunters DO seem to specialize in a specific monster (like Gordon with his vampires he was so precious about not letting Sam and Dean help him with, and the implication that Wally spent most of his time hunting rougarous, and even Bobby at first was presented as a “demon expert” before we discovered the true breadth of his scholarly knowledge of the lore). Like that’s their “comfort zone,” in a manner of speaking. But even Gordon eventually branched out from vampires in s3 and began hunting the “special children” like Sam. 
>> 
>> But even still, even when they have their specialties, there is that loose network of support, or “hunter gatherings.” In s2 we had the Roadhouse, then Bobby, then Garth, and now everyone who attended Asa’s funeral in 12.06. They do share info, but Sam and Dean had largely even been kept out of THAT network as kids. John really did try to keep them as much in the dark as possible, while still training them in the basics of hunting, lore, and research.
>> 
>> They’ve just been honing all those skills over the years, and like Dean said in 12.16, you put on a flannel and pick up a gun. Either you get good fast, or you get dead faster. They got good. (and heck I mean they got dead a bunch of times too, but that just seemed to drive them to want to get even better… what, hunting is strange like that :P)
> 
> I think the real advantage they started with was being raised–and  _trained_ –in the life, even if they weren’t  _directly exposed_ to the life via hunts. Like, Sam, as a freshman in high school, was already skilled enough at hand-to-hand to take down a much larger bully without breaking a sweat or taking a single hit (once he decided to actually fight). At the same age, he was also extremely well-versed not just in a wide breadth of lore, but in  _how to research new lore_ , which is a super important skill that takes years and years and years and years to develop. 
> 
> So, once they actually struck out on their own and started facing these things in real life, they were already master marksmen, master researchers, master fighters, master tacticians, master lateral thinkers, etc. They might not have had a ton of opportunity to apply those skills practically (well, Sam maybe not, but Dean had probably been doing it for years already, seeing as he was hunting on his own and obviously was hunting with John long before then), but those skills were  _so_ deeply developed already that when they were thrown into the deep end, they adapted incredibly quickly–they “got good fast.”
> 
> Whereas with most other hunters, who end up in the life after tragedy strikes, need ten (or more) years to develop the shooting, fighting, researching/lore, tactical, and lateral thinking skills that Dean and Sam already had by the end of their teens. And if you’re hunting during those ten or fifteen years  _before_ you’ve become an absolute master at all those things, you like as not end up dead first.

Yep. They’d been raised like warriors. They were taught all these skills that would help them eventually grow into the master-level hunters we know today.

But I think John did try to keep them away from certain kinds of hunts, as much to protect them from the demonic conspiracy he was uncovering surrounding Mary’s death in Sam’s nursery, as to protect himself from other hunters who might discover the truth about Sam (the way Gordon Walker did in s2/s3).

It was fear, not only to expose Sam and Dean to other hunters who might prove to be a threat to  _them_ , but also John’s lack of trust in pretty much everyone else.

Sam and Dean knew almost nothing about demons before the end of s1. Even Specky in 1.04 almost took them out. I think John deliberately tried to keep them in the dark on demons specifically, out of fear for Sam and Dean’s safety from the demonic threat to his family, but also just a wee bit out of his fear OF SAM, and what might happen if Sam learned the full truth of what happened the night Mary died.

It was a pretty messed up situation.

But yeah, they were definitely trained with all the skills they’d need to eventually become the best hunters the planet has ever seen. It’s like their final exam began when John left them his journal in 1.01 and told them to hunt.

[practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

[Apr 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159203863060/just-throwing-an-idea-out-regarding-sam-and-dean)

39 notes

**Anonymous asked: Just throwing an idea out regarding Sam and Dean being in high school together: considering the fact that Dean didn't seem very invested in school and never ended up graduating at all, it's possible that he had to repeat a year, or was repeating his senior year during After School Special, thus explaining why he was still in high school**

My theory? John left Dean behind to make sure Sam was adjusting to high school okay.

We know Dean had already dropped out of school by this point (at least that makes sense), and heck the fact he didn’t have a permanent school record, and probably didn’t start kindergarten on time, and likely never really, truly finished ANY grade of school considering how much they moved around and the fact we know he’d already been going off hunting with John by the time he was 14-15 while leaving Sam behind alone… I figure that every time they moved again and he enrolled in a new school, they’d probably be long gone to their next school by the time any sort of transcript paperwork showed up to their new school… He’d just be enrolled in the age-appropriate grade based on whatever forged birth certificate John handed over to the admins.

This is also where I theorize Toni Bevell got Sam’s super-inaccurate birth certificate from, why the birth dates didn’t match, and Mary’s maiden name was wrong.

Anyway, yeah, there’s a lot of sketchy going on with their entire educational careers…

And Dean wasn’t very invested in school because he was never ALLOWED to be invested in school. He was pushed into hunting younger than Sam, pushed into caring for Sam, making sure Sam was safe and okay, and that would’ve carried over into neglect of his own schoolwork to make sure Sam’s was getting done.

Plus, what does he need school lessons for? He was gonna join the family business. Okay this is all terrible imma go have a good long cry now

[practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting) [the ghost of john winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-ghost-of-john-winchester)

 

[May 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161176142975/where-do-sammy-and-deano-get-money-to-buy-stuff)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: where do sammy and deano get money to buy stuff???**

credit card fraud, pool hustling, I’m guessing Dean’s hacking skills go beyond just monitoring traffic cameras and veer into the sort of territory Charlie demonstrated in 7.20.

In s12 it’s pretty easy to assume that they were being at least partially financed by the BMoL, especially in the second half of the season.

Magic, maybe?

There’s been a lot of speculation on the subject over the years. I finally gave a tag to this (and related subjects):

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting>

There’s not a lot in the tag yet. There are more posts on this topic going all the way back to s1, but finding them on my blog is not something I’m prepared to waste an entire day on today. Sorry.  Someday I will actually organize all my tags… 

[practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

[Aug 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164343189285/i-was-just-reading-a-meta-post-about-food-in-spn)

36 notes

**[fuckedupasusual](http://fuckedupasusual.tumblr.com/) asked: I was just reading a meta post about food in SPN. That had me sidetrack thinking about how nowadays the boys pay for all the restaurant food, groceries etc. and who pays the electricity bill for the bunker :D ? What's your take, are the boys still into credit card scams and pool?**

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164342424035/i-was-just-reading-a-meta-post-about-food-in-spn):

> I think it’s been established in canon, back in 8.13, what we assume is their first morning waking up in the bunker:
> 
> **DEAN** : The, uh, water pressure in the Letters’ shower room is marvelous.  
>  **SAM** : Yeah. I still can’t figure out how we even have water… or electricity.   
>  **DEAN** : Yep, well, I am putting that under the “ain’t broke” column.
> 
> And then we never really hear anything more about how the bunker “works,” at least as far as basic systems like this go. We do learn in 8.20 that the bunker has some extra-special sorts of protections:
> 
> **SAM** : It’s from Charlie. “In the neighborhood, found you guys a case.” Found us a case?  
>  **DEAN** : In the neighborhood? How the hell does she know where we are?  
>  **SAM** : Uh, well, she doesn’t. Not exactly, at least. It says she tracked our cells to a twenty mile radius, then the signal went out. Huh. This place must be in some kinda, like, Bermuda Triangle.  
>  **DEAN** : What, are you saying we can make and receive phone calls from here and nobody can track us? Man I love this place.
> 
> And then again in 9.04 (thanks Charlie!) we learn some more about the defense systems and the map table via that ancient computer console… but we’ve still never learned anything more about where the basic electricity and water comes from, nor how they seem to have wifi throughout (or even a phone signal in an underground bunker).
> 
> Considering Mary’s long-abandoned phone left in the bunker in 12.20 (and Dean’s in his desk drawer in 12.09, after being in prison for several weeks) maintained a charge despite having been left on, I’m vaguely suspecting some sort of tesla tower powering everything in the bunker…
> 
> We did learn a little more about the bunker’s systems in 12.22, but not in any way we can really use to speculate on where their power and water comes from. As far as we know, it’s still an “ain’t broke” situation. Meaning they just don’t question it and just assume it all works by magic. :P

 

Aaand it’s just occurred to me (after stepping away to eat dinner…) that I talked about the electricity at the bunker and totally neglected the rest of the ask…

Money. :D

I think they’re still hustling pool. I think they’ve probably moved beyond the s1 style credit card fraud, since banking regulations have likely made it harder to just apply for random fraudulent credit cards like that nowadays.

But they’ve also been associating with some interesting hackers that have likely taught them some tricks. We know Frank taught Dean how to hack security cameras, but it seems equally likely that Frank, and even Charlie, taught them some useful financial tricks, as well. At least, I imagine they did.

After all, we saw Charlie moving large sums of money via computer transactions in 7.20, as well as in 8.20.

But we also saw Dean hustling some guys out of money playing pool as recently as 10.17.

I’m actually glad they’ve sort of gotten vague about where their money comes from, because clearly they DO have access to money, and they DO have some pretty advanced hacker skills… If they came right out and said where it all came from it would close doors on a lot of potential that I’d rather keep imagining for myself. But I’m weird like that. :P

There’s also the theory after 8.17 that Dean may have been carefully selling off antiques from the bunker:

DEAN is still sorting, pulls out a folder that contains an old magazine titled “Voluptuous ASIAN LOVELIES.” He chuckles at the picture of the Asian woman on the cover holding a paper parasol.  
 **DEAN** : Well, hello. [He flips through the old porn magazine.] These Men of Letters weren’t so boring after all. Konnichiwa. [Said in Japanese to a page entitled “Appreciation of Asian Lovelies.”] Hey, check this out. [DEAN walks down into the control room holding the magazine for SAM to see.]  
 **SAM** : Dude, what is wrong with you?  
 **DEAN** : What’s wrong with me? You kidding me? This is a first edition, dude. [We get an overhead shot of SAM sitting at the laminated map table.] You know what this would go for on eBay?  
 **SAM** : No. Why? Do you?  
 **DEAN** : No. Maybe. Shut up.

I mean, I prefer to think he wouldn’t, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

[the bunker](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-bunker) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting)

 

[Jan 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169890436305/why-is-jody-burying-the-monster-anyway-if-i-were)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Why is Jody burying the monster anyway? If I were a hunter I'd salt n burn the shit out of everything. It's like the supernatural version of the double tap. Make sure that thing is dead. I mean is she trying to grow some mad tomatoes?**

PFFFT. Yeah, I’d burn it too. I was actually surprised about that move as well. But then again, it’s not like the Sheriff can just burn down a funeral pyre in her suburban back yard without drawing potentially unwanted attention… >.>

Heck there might even be burn laws she’d be violating. Can’t have that… :P

And it’s entirely possible that she will eventually burn it, but like the necromacers in 8.13, they did dig a grave for them before salting and burning them IN the grave…

[Originally posted by spn-gifs](https://tmblr.co/Z2OXbo1q_rwAM)

It helps contain the fire, keeps it from spreading through the whole neighborhood, and makes for easier cleanup afterward. :P

[spn 13.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.10) [spn 8.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.13) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers)

 

[Jul 26, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176306215625/what-if-what-if-john-acted-homophobic-not)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: What if... What if John acted homophobic not because /he/ was homophobic but to, in a convoluted and twisted way, protect Dean from the rampant homophobia that existed then. Don't get me wrong, he's still a massive abusive dick and even if this is true it doesn't make it right but what if?**

I’m not sure there’s really any canon evidence that John was homophobic? I mean, heteronormative yeah, pushing Manly Man Behavior as the standard that Dean learned from him, but I think the notion that he would’ve been homophobic is based on that, extrapolated from that.

But yeah, that concept fits with everything we know about how he raised Dean. Don’t rock the boat, don’t draw attention to yourself, never go back to the same town twice (as in 6.13), don’t get caught, don’t do anything that will get you tangled up with the law or cause trouble… Fit in, act normal, be cool.

The best offense is a good defense, so to speak. Hunting is already a fringe occupation that left them skimming along on the outskirts of society, constantly at risk of being “outed,” so to speak. John’s rules of hunting, in that way, apply to queerness, as well.

All of that secrecy was pushed onto Sam through his “demon blood” and what happened to him in that nursery. John never even talked about what he knew about that with Sam and Dean, you know? Buried, hidden, all to keep Sam “safe” from anyone else discovering how he wasn’t “normal,” at least partly for their own safety. And where Sam has all the “supernatural” queerness metaphors pinned to his character arc, Dean has… queer queerness metaphors attached. It’s all tied together through this same theme, and where Sam has come to understand and accept himself (I watched 12.04 again yesterday and I AM STILL VERKLEMPT), so has Dean… all related back to how they were raised by John…

So even if he wasn’t actively homophobic, there’s still the era to consider, the lifestyle of secrecy on the fringes of society they had to maintain, as well as the thematic parallels linking all of these long-running plot points together.

So while it’s a fandom assumption rather than explicit canon, all the subtext suggests it as a strong (if specifically unstated) possibility. Hence the fact it’s a continuing theme in boatloads of fic. (and one I’ve even addressed specifically, such as in Plotbunny).

[the ghost of john winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-ghost-of-john-winchester) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting) [queercoding](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/queercoding)

 

[Nov 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179998867460/did-dean-hittingshooting-the-djinn-just-knock-it)

22 notes

**Anonymous asked: Did Dean hitting/shooting the djinn just knock it unconscious? It seemed pretty dead, but it would be weird if it could be killed without lamb's blood... I'm assuming they ran out and got some blood to kill it before it woke up or something?**

This goes back to the sandwich, I think…

(sorry I haven’t had coffee yet, and that logic jump made perfect sense inside my own head)

He asked Sasha to leave the room. It’s not like she knew the code word “Poughkeepsie,” which in Winchester terms means “drop everything and run, so Dean invented a code word on the spot that she’d be able to understand– after just a moment of rightful indignation. :P 

But by the time she came back, the room had been cleaned up. If the beating and bullets didn’t fix everything, they at least took the djinn out long enough for someone to make a run to the local butcher shop while everyone else cleaned up. I mean it was daylight again before Sasha came back to sit with her father, so some time had passed.

We didn’t have to see it happening to understand that the situation was fully taken care of one way or another. And it wasn’t the most important part of the story being told, you know? The technicalities of the djinn’s death were less important than the information he conveyed to Dean, and the rest of what we learned about Dean in this episode and how he’s trying to cope with his baggage.

[spn 14.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.05) [practicalities of monster hunting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/practicalities-of-monster-hunting) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN)


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